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KARL MARX 

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The Constructive Elements 

of Socialism 



Thiree Iieetutfes and Tuuo Essays 

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THH ^RDlCflLi REVIEW PUBlilSHl^G ASSOCIATION 
202 EAST 17th ST., f*EW YOt*K CITY 

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Reprint from the July-September, October- 
December, 1917, January-March and April- 
June, 1918, issues of "The Radical Review" 







I 



AT the same time, and quite apart from the gen- 
eral servitude involved in the wages system, 
the working class ought not to exaggerate to 
themselves the ultimate working of these every- 
day struggles. They ought not to forget that they 
are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of 
those effects; that they are retarding the downward 
movement, but not changing its direction, that they 
are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They 
ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in 
these unavoidable guerilla fights, incessantly spring- 
ing up from the ever-ceasing encroachments of 
capital or changes of the market. They ought to 
understand that, with all the miseries it imposes 
upon them, the present system simultaneously en- 
genders the material conditions and the social forms 
necessary for an economical reconstruction of so- 
ciety. Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair 
day's wages for a fair day's work!" they ought to 
inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watch- 
word, "Abolition of the wages system!"— Karl Marx. 




CONTENTS 

Page 

Karl Marx: The Man and His Work: 

First Lecture 11 

Second Lecture 41 

Third Lecture 65 

An Outline for the Study of Marxism 85 

The Constructive Elements of Socialism: 

First Part 103 

Second Part 113 



KARL MARX: 

THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

A STUDY IN HISTORICAL MATERIALISM 



FIRST LECTURE 



FIRST LECTURE 11 



Workingmen and Workingwomen : 

THERE is probably no name in the labor movement today, yes 
and in the scientific world, which is more revered and idolized 
than that of the founder of scientific Socialism : Karl Marx. In 
the proletarian movement the name of Marx has become a syno- 
nym for scientific soundness and irrefutable accuracy on the one 
hand, and also a cloak with which to cover and label the most 
spurious intellectual wares on the other. In scientific circles 
practically the same conditions prevail, only with the gratifying 
exception that here the distorters and corrupters of Marx: the 
Mallocks, Boehm-Bawerks, Skeltons and Simkhovitches, quickly 
meet their Waterloo at the hands of a competent Marxian, and 
are thus prevented from accomplishing any further confusion and 
material harm. As implied above, in the labor movement or 
Socialist movement proper the task is not so simple, yes a great 
deal more difficult, and the reason for this peculiarity is to be 
found in the astonishing ignorance prevalent amongst so-called 
Marxian Socialists 'on matters Marxian ; furthermore in the fact 
that the corrupter and distorter of Marx in this case generally 
carries on his work, knowingly or unknowingly matters little, in 
the name of Socialist propaganda or under the cover of Marxism. 

With so many of his great predecessors, Karl Marx, in the 
course of years and through the highly scientific character of his 
works, has been gradually elevated to the position of an infallible 
demi-god by veritable legions of adherents. Thousands, yes 
hundreds of thousands of sincere and well meaning Socialists 
never tire of acclaiming their allegiance to the teachings of this 
great economist, but — and this is a most regrettable truth — very 
rarely will the inquisitive seeker find a disciple amongst these 

/ 



12 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

masses who has intelligently read or studied the works of his 
idol. Nothing is more repulsive and disgusting than just this 
unqualified Marx-deification: a deification which like all idolatry 
finds its source in the ignorance of the masses, and a deification 
which is everything but a tribute to Marx and his teachings. To 
combat just these godlike conceptions of Marx and to familiarize 
the workers with the social significance of this truly great indi- 
vidual, is one of the cardinal objects of these lectures. 

I fully appreciate the largeness of this task, also the impossi- 
bility to present to you even a fair pen-picture of the man, or an 
adequate synopsis of his theoretical system in the limited time 
at my disposal. These lectures, therefore, do not lay claim to 
exhaustiveness, neither are they to be considered a condensed 
compendium or handbook of Marxism made easy. Socialist 
literature is already plentifully supplied with works of this kind, 
many of which are excellent, and still more that would have per- 
formed a great service to Socialist clarity had they remained 
unwritten. 

My aim in presenting these lectures is to bring the man and 
social creature Marx nearer to you. I would like to interest 
many of my comrades and fellow men in the teachings of this 
master of Socialist letters. To do this successfully, that is cor- 
rectly, we must examine the historic conditions and the more 
immediate social atmosphere out of or in which Marx came to be 
and developed. By becoming familiar with the life of Marx and 
the distinct material conditions of which this life was but a pro- 
duct, much of the sanctimonious hero-worship will sink into 
oblivion, and make room for an intelligent appreciation based 
upon a sound perception. If I succeed in arousing and stimulat- 
ing the interest of my auditors to the extent that they will make 
an effort to study and familiarize themselves with the works of 
Marx, then I believe the purpose of these lectures has been ac- 
complished. 

With these few preliminary remarks as a compass before us, 



FIRST LECTURE 13 

let us embark on our journey into the fields of Marx and 
Marxism. 

It is now practically a half century ago that Marx presented 
the first volume of his immortal work "Capital". to the world: a 
work which for the first time, since the inception of the capitalist 
mode of production, laid bare the laws and forces governing this 
economic structure. Through the analysis of capitalist produc- 
tion, Marx exposed the source of all profits, and showed this to 
rest in the appropriation of surplus value from the workers. His 
theory of surplus value is a most valuable addition to classical 
political economy, and raises itself upon the theories of value 
evolved by Petty, Ricardo and Adam Smith, however, also sup- 
plemented and perfected by Marx. With the aid of this theory, 
Marx demonstrated that although the worker under the system of 
capitalist production receives in the last analysis the full value of 
his labor-power, he is nevertheless exploited, because he produces 
in excess of this value, and does not receive the full value of his 
product. 

Going out from the theory of value as evolved by classical 
political economy of which Ricardo was the last representative, 
and which formulated that the value of a commodity is deter- 
mined by the quantity of labor time consumed in its production, 
Marx started to analyze the only thing the worker has left to sell, 
namely his labor-power, and also stamped this a commodity. 
And in just this commodity-status of labor-power he conceived 
the source of all profit and the source of all accumulated wealth. 
Marx clearly pointed out that the value of the worker's labor- 
power is determined by the same law that controls the values of 
all other commodities, namely : that the value of a worker's labor- 
power is also fixed by the volume of socially necessary labor time 
required to produce the commodities necessary to maintain the 
life of a wage-slave, i. e., that the articles— food, clothes, shelter, 
e t c>j — consumed by the worker in order to sustain life, a life that 
is again fixed by a certain historical and social standard, deter- 



14 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

mine the size of his wage. Marx now shows that due to its 
physical peculiarities and the wonderful productivity of our age, 
labor-power is the only commodity which in the process of pro- 
ductive consumption yields far more than its value, i. e., far more 
than it needs to reproduce itself. He clearly underscored that 
where all other commodities when consumed yield but the value 
contained in them, labor-power yields far in excess of its value, 
because the worker is the only commodity which produces or 
yields far more than what is consumed in its production. And 
he concluded that all work performed by the worker in excess of 
the work necessary to keep him alive, or to produce the value of 
his wages, is surplus work, or surplus labor appropriated by the 
purchaser of the worker's labor-power, the capitalist. 

With the aid of this theory of surplus value, he was able to 
explain the cause and nature of the periodical crisis or panic in 
capitalist society. He predicted that as capitalism developed, the 
markets in which to dispose of the surplus wares, or in which to 
realize the surplus value extracted from the workers at home 
were bound to become scarcer, and the industrial depressions 
more frequent. And in the contradiction between the ever in- 
creasing social aspects of production and the growing features of 
individual ownership; in the contradiction that increased produc- 
tivity on the one hand spells increased laziness on the other; in 
the contradiction between over-production and underconsumption 
— a contradiction which so graphically illustrates the economic 
status of the surplus-value sponging idler and the exploited pro- 
letarian respectively; and finally in the contradiction between 
social creation and individual appropriation, a contradiction 
which is the dynamo of the class struggle, Marx saw the inevit- 
able collapse of the capitalist system of production. By cementing 
his economic deductions with his philosophical system of his- 
torical development, known as the Materialist Conception of 
History, he was able to clearly outline and formulate the histor- 
ical mission of the workers, a mission based upon hard economic 
conditions and clearly flowing from and truly in accord with the 



FIRST LECTURE 15 

class interests of the proletariat. As stated before, these interests 
lie found were but the logical product of the material conditions 
underlying capitalist production : conditions which were bound to 
make the workers conscious of their class interests, and develop 
to such a climax where the expropriation of the expropriators 
would become a dictate of historic evolution: where individual 
social property would give way to social individual property, as 
the next step in the dialectical process of social development. 

Practically fifty years have elapsed since the publication of 
the first volume of "Capital,", and the formulation of the theories 
just touched upon. And on' March 14th of this year it will be 
thirty-four years since Karl Marx has passed from us. In these 
days of hurry and scurry, thirty-four years seem a veritable age. 
How many refutations, corrections, revisions, and annihilations 
of Marxism were we not compelled to witness in this short span 
of time? Let me again remind you of the Brentanos, Mallocks, 
Simkhovitches, Skeltons, Boehm-Bawerks, Bernsteins and con- 
sorts. Consider the bulky tomes, highly praised by capitalist 
journals and professorial fossils, they wrote in their valiant at- 
tempt to overthrow the theoretical system of Marx ; consider how 
the combined schools of vulgar-economy have thundered for 
years against the theoretical premises of this proletarian econo- 
mist ; consider how these henchmen of capital, in the face of irre- 
futable facts and figures, in the face of undeniable conditions, 
have sought by intimidation and fraud to ignore, stifle jind finally 
corrupt the economic and philosophical deductions of Marx; 
consider these events well, and then take an inventory of the 
results accomplished. You will find that the majority of the 
"learned" books written to refute Marxism have been relegated 
into oblivion, or, probably, act as dust absorbers on the shelves 
of various libraries. Of course, the Mallocks, Skeltons and 
Boehm-Bawerks are still with us and plying their trade vigorously 
as ever. Are their theoretical effusions, however, taken as serious 
as of yore? No, they have neutralized the effect of their theo- 
retical vaporings with the poison of their past idiosyncracies, to 



16 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

use a mild term. Only one opponent named above has had the 
courage of convictions to admit his errors and that was the stron- 
gest opponent of Marxism in Europe, the father of Revisionism 
— Eduard Bernstein. Bernstein has openly admitted himself 
mistaken in his deductions on capitalist development; since the 
outbreak of the war he has repudiated Revisionism and Revision- 
ists, and is today the chief collaborator of Karl Kautsky, the fore- 
most exponent of Marxism in the world. At a whole the bourgeois 
economists, in their attempt to refute Marx's theory of value and 
surplus value and the logical deductions flowing therefrom, or 
in their futile efforts to disprove the Materialist Conception of 
History have failed, yes, miserably failed. 

And how many experiments, "practical" experiments along 
the lines of sugar-coated reforms, social uplift work and philan- 
thropic saps have not been launched, in order to exterminate by 
practical demonstration the class hatred (understand class-con- 
sciousness) inherent in the Marxian conception of society, and so 
grandly symbolized by the fighting proletariat conscious of its 
aim. Have these efforts accomplished their task?; have the class 
cleavages been bridged over, or the antagonism abolished?; is the 
identity between Capital and Labor today a reality?; and finally, 
has the class struggle, this diabolical invention of satan, been 
substituted by social harmony? Has the spectre of Communism 
ceased to haunt Europe since the issuing of the Communist 
Manifesto? When we look upon society today, and compare the 
gigantic accumulations of wealth in the hands of an ever decreas- 
ing number of capitalists on the one hand with the, relatively 
speaking, dependency and misery of an ever growing proletariat 
on the other; when we compare the colossal struggles between 
the robbers and the exploited of today with the comparatively 
pygmean struggles of the past ; and when we compare the social 
relations between the feudal-capitalist and the enslaved worker 
of our present oligarchic-capitalism with the relations between 
capitalist and worker of even fifty years ago, then every unbiased 
student will admit that the class demarcations are sharper drawn, 



FIRST LECTURE 17 

the interests of the conflicting classes more opposed, and the 
class-struggle raging with greater vigor today than ever before. 
And, true to the Marxian conception of capitalism, class-lines 
will continue to become more distinct and the class struggle cor- 
respondingly more intensive, the industrial depressions more 
frequent and the lot of the worker more unsettled, as the capital- 
ist mode of production reaches ever higher forms in its develop- 
ment. To sum up : today, more lucidly than ever, the economic 
and philosophical deductions and principles of Marx stand veri- 
fied and vindicated by the force of past experience and the facts 
of current events — an intellectual oasis in the desert of vulgar- 
economy. 

And the teachings of the founder of scientific Socialism have 
not only been verified by the undeniable facts of economic evolu- 
tion, but also by a corresponding increasing class-consciousness 
accompanying this inexorable historic process. When Marx 
went to eternal rest in 1883, already more than the proverbial 
baker's dozen had declared their allegiance to Socialism : it was • 
the period when hundreds and thousands followed the standard 
of working-class emancipation — the dawn of modern capitalism, 
and the embryonic stage in the development of the modern labor 
movement. Today millions of disinherited all over the globe 
gather around the banner dedicated to the proletariat by Marx: 
a banner truly expressive of the demands of economic and social 
necessity, and symbolizing the ideals and historic mission of the 
working-class — the destruction of the political class state and the 
inauguration of the Industrial Republic. 

II. 

Upon the death of Marx, Frederick Engels wrote amongst 
ethers to Wilhelm Liebknecht : "The greatest mind of the second 
half of our century has ceased to think." He ends his pathetic 
letter with the following glowing tribute : "Whatever we are, we 
are through him; and whatever the movement of today is, it is 



18 KARL MARX : THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

through his theoretical and practical work; without him, we 
would still be stuck in the mire of confusion." 

These words may seem pretentious and illogical, especially 
when uttered by a Historical Materialist, but when we consider 
the scientific reputation of their author, they command attention 
and respect. They seem more so pretentious, when we consider 
that the nineteenth century was particularly representative of 
great men. Was this not also the century that produced a Dar- 
win, a man who achieved the same results in the field of biology 
that immortalized Marx's name in the annals of the social 
sciences? Just as Marx investigated and laid bare the great 
motive forces and the social laws which actuate and propel the 
development of society from a lower to a higher stage, so Darwin 
uncovered and pointed out the dynamic powers and laws of 
nature which compel life in its simplest form to develop endless- 
chain-like into more complicated organisms. However, when 
critically comparing Marx with Darwin, it seems to me that 
Engels' praise is just. In my humble opinion, Marx was the 
stronger and more diversified personality. In Darwin we cele- 
brate the scholar, who searched and accumulated knowledge for 
the purpose of knowing and presenting his findings. His field 
was far away from the social conflict, and his findings, compar- 
atively speaking, did not affect the social destiny and the class 
interests of certain social layers so vitally, as did the application 
of the evolutionary principle by Marx to History and Political 
Economy. In Marx we notice a blending of the earnest and 
searching scientist, who yearns for clearness and truth, with the 
man of action and deeds — the revolutionist. Darwin confined 
himself to, or at least was forced to confine himself to the estab- 
lishment of the laws actuating life, i. e., to that what was and is in 
nature. After Marx had discovered the iron laws governing 
social development, after he had laid down these laws in the text- 
book of the proletariat, "Capital," he then did not rest satisfied 
with his achievements. Marx studied in order to place his fin- 
dings into the service of social development : in order to actively 



FIRST LECTURE 19 

participate in the struggle for the Socialist Commonwealth. He 
desired to know, so he could act, and he wanted to be well equip- 
ped for the task meted out to him and his class-conscious com- 
rades by the unrelenting course of historic events. To him 
philosophical clarity implied philosophical clarity to the workers ; 
the same as we see all his activity radiating from a class-con- 
scious premise and inaugurated solely for the purpose of 
abolishing class-rule. He well appreciated, with the aid of the 
Materialist Conception of History, the great role the proletariat 
had to play in the advancement of society to a higher stage in 
civilization; he knew that social evolution had formulated this 
position of the workers in the social struggle, but he also knew 
that the workers had first to become conscious of their historic 
mission in order to fulfill the same successfully — in order to 
desire to perform the same. 

Writing on the relation of philosophy to working-class ac- 
tivity in the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbikher (German-French 
Annals), he gives the following piece of advice to his erstwhile 
friends, the Young-Hegelians : "You can not realize a philosophy 
without abolishing it." However, he did not forget what he had 
learned from them, and addressing the bourgeoisie says : "You 
can not abolish a philosophy without realizing it. Just as philo- 
sophy finds in the proletariat its material weapons, so the prole- 
tariat finds in philosophy its intellectual weapons. The head of 
emancipation is philosophy, its heart is the proletariat. The 
philosophy can not be realized without the abolition of the pro- 
letariat, and the proletariat can not abolish itself without the 
realization of philosophy." If the readers will substitute Social- 
ism for the word philosophy, then the last sentence will read: 
Socialism can not be realized without the abolition of the prole- 
tariat, and the proletariat can not abolish itself without the reali- 
zation of Socialism. 

Before entering upon an examination of the details in Marx's 
life, details which are as interesting as they are plentiful and 



20 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

which in their totality furnish the sum-total of this turbulent life, 
let us subject the immediate and also the larger social environ- 
ment out of which and in which Marx grew and developed to a 
casual examination. I believe, it is quite essential to have at 
least a general knowledge of the social and historic background 
overshadowing and influencing every step in the life of this 
genius, before you will be able to comprehend and appreciate the 
detailed phases of his tumultuous career intelligently. 

Considering Marx's parentage, Klara Zetkin, a profound 
Marxian scholar, remarks : "The customary theories fail us, when 
we propound the question how this great personality, this genial 
thinker, grew and came to be. The parents of Marx were good 
and intelligent folks, although in no sense intellectually superior 
to the average. Neither do the family annals of either mother or 
father point to any ancestor whose intellectual endowments and 
characteristics remind us of or are comparable to Marx's." 

Wilhelm Liebknecht, who for years shared the hard days of 
exile with Marx in London, writing on this subject states: "On 
the 5th of May, 1818, at Treves — the oldest German town — 
among the monuments of Roman civilization and amid the recent 
traces of the French Revolution that had cleaned the Rhenish 
province of medieval rubbish, a son was born in a Jewish family: 
Karl Marx. Only four years had passed since the province of 
the Rhine had been occupied by Prussia, and the new masters 
hastened, in the service of the "Holy Alliance," to replace the 
Heathenish-French by a Christian-German spirit. The pagan 
Frenchmen had proclaimed the equal rights of all human beings 
in the German Rhineland, and had removed from the Jews the 
curse of a thousand years' persecution and oppression, had made 
citizens and human beings of them. The Christian-German 
spirit of the "Holy Alliance" condemned the Heathenish-French 
spirit of equalization and demanded renovation of the old curse. 

"Shortly after the birth of the boy, an edict was issued leaving 



FIRST LECTURE 21 

to all the Jews no other choice but to be baptized or to forego all 
official position and activity. 

"The father of Marx, a prominent Jewish lawyer and notary 
at the county court, submitted to the unavoidable, and, with his 
family, adopted the Christian faith. 

"Twenty years later, when the boy had grown to be a man, 
he gave the first reply to this act of violence in his pamphlet on 
the Hebrew Question. And his whole life was a reply and was 
the revenge." 






'Marx's father," writes Marx's daughter, "was a man of 
great talent, and thoroughly imbued with the French ideas of the 
eighteenth century concerning religion, science and art; his mo- 
ther was descended from Hungarian Jews who had settled in 
Holland in the seventeenth century. Among his earliest friends 
and companions were Jenny — later his wife — and Edgar von 
Westfalen. It was their father — a half Scot — who inspired Marx 
with his first love for the romantic school; and while his father 
read Voltaire and Racine to him, Westfalen read Homer and 
Shakespeare to him. And these remained his favorite authors." 

It seems to me that the most desirable potentialities of the 
Jewish race lived in Marx. We find in him the untiring seeker 
for truth; the seeker who climbed lonely mountain peaks and 
strove to wrest from the fiery bush that which humanity has sought 
and striven for since the daybreak of culture: the knowledge of 
life. Furthermore, we meet here also the tenacious clinging to 
convictions, and the joy of faith and devotion to a cause: traits 
which are all predominant in the Jewish race. Then we find in 
him the flaming rage against injustice and slavery, and that strong 
developed brotherly feeling, which, according to a biblical legend, 
prompted Moses to clench his fist to strike the Egyptian who was 
maltreating a brother of his race. Nevertheless, all these charac- 
teristics do not possess anything typically Jewish or racial, be- 
cause their uniqueness was not developed in sectarian seclusion, and 



22 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

because they are blended or prompted by a cosmopolitanism 
utterly foreign to the orthodox sectarian : a cosmopolitanism that 
tears down the boundaries of creed, color or race, and that ex- 
presses itself through the brotherhood of man based on the foun- 
dation of economic equality. However, wherever Marx's natural 
endowments, traits which singularly fitted and are no doubt to a 
large degree the product of the requirements of the historic hour, 
may come from matters little, especially when we note that in 
their manifestations they were always placed into the service of 
disinterested progress in general and into the cause of that class, 
ordained to be the vanguard of all progress, in particular — the 
working-class. 

We know that Marx's cradle stood in that part of Germany 
which had been swept over and thoroughly cleansed of medieval 
refuse by the liberating and invigorating winds of the French 
Revolution. And, if we take into consideration that the Rhine- 
land borders closely upon that country, which at the beginning 
of the fifteenth century was the first to give expression to bour- 
geois sentiments and interests; a country in which capitalism, 
still shut up in its f eudalic womb, ripened first ; a country that in 
those days produced an Erasmus and a Spinoza — the Nether- 
lands; then it will not surprise you, when I emphasize that the 
Rhenish Province is today and always has been the most classical 
seat of capitalism in Germany, ergo, also the most progressive 
province in Prussia or the German Empire. During Marx's boy- 
hood days, the pulsating throbs of the great French uprising were 
still felt in the Rhineland, and were graphically visible in the bold 
stand taken by the bourgeoisie against the powers of reaction — 
a spirit that remained unbroken and rose to its most magnificent 
heights in the turbulent days of 1848. 

And now we come to a time in which Marx developed and 
worked to advance his views and ideals : the period of his life, 
and the period of victorious, advancing capitalism. England had 
practically achieved the mastery over the markets of the world. 



FIRST LECTURE 23 

France or at least French capitalism was organizing gigantic ac- 
cumulations of wealth for exploitation. In the sixties, Marx 
sees how victorious capitalism invades Austria, Italy, yes even 
Bohemia. He also is compelled to witness the liberation of the 
serfs by Alexander II., and thus receives valid indications that 
capitalism has also commenced to revolutionize the empire of the 
"little father." He further observes how capitalist production 
spreads across the ocean, and how the new world also succumbs 
to the irresistible economic forces making for social progress. 
Everywhere he sees the advancing forces, the dynamic powers of 
capitalist production, undermining and destroying the old econo- 
mic foundations, and setting in their place devices more com- 
petent to carry on the process of production. And to be sure, 
these economic revolutions were bound to be followed by corre- 
sponding political upheavals whose aim and object it was to adapt 
the political institutions to meet the requirements of the new and 
changed economic conditions. The new capitalist society in the 
making was no exception to the rule : the nineteenth century may 
be correctly called a century of political revolutions. 

In this manner, historical development presented to or spread 
before the eyes of Marx incomparable economic and political 
material : data as important to the searching eye of a student as 
the compass is to the destination of a ship. This development 
was internationally so plainly conceivable as the growth of 
plants in a hot-house, and quite naturally attracted the attention 
and animated the deeper searching intellects of the world to ex- 
plain the underlying forces of this gigantic process. However, 
that Marx was able to penetrate and master this large, manifold 
and chaotic mass of material, that he was able to crystallize the 
results of his investigation in a manner as clear as crystal, he 
owes to the German classical philosophy. This philosophy gave 
him the scientific equipment, the scientific training, without which 
his achievements would have been impossible. 

When the youthful Marx, imbued with an insatiable desire 



24 KARL MARX : THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

for truth, began to question the laws of social evolution, the sun 
of classical philosophy and art was already setting in Germany. 
Her splendour and warmth, however, still permeated the intel- 
lectual atmosphere of this period. The' grand philosophy of 
Hegel particularly continued to affect, influence and live on in 
the progressive minds. This philosophy conceived everything 
existing or in a state of creation, whether in nature or in society, 
as the outcome of a harmonious, well regulated process of evo- 
lution: an evolution which in its continuous flow destroys and 
creates, and whose final cause can be conceived in the self-asser- 
tion or movement of the absolute idea. According to this con- 
ception,evolution is stimulated or whipped on through the struggle 
of contradictions or antitheses : a struggle which usually or finally 
is bound to end with the coming together or amalgamation of the 
conflicting elements into a higher unit. Governed by the idea of 
evolution, Hegel's philosophy did not approach the objects of its 
investigation as completed and fixed creations, which are the same 
in life as in death, but in their rich diversity of growth and de- 
cline, i. e., in their various expressions or manifestations of life. 
This system of research was known as the dialectic method. 
Young Marx felt in Hegel a congenial intellect, whose teachings 
attracted him with an irresistible power. These teachings have 
been a determining factor in his development and work. Marx, 
more so than any other man, accepted the legacy of Hegel: a 
legacy which he found in the concept of evolution. However, as 
Engels so pointedly remarks : he placed this conception, standing 
on its head, upon the feet. He sought for the driving forces of 
historic life not outside of nature or society, not in the mystical 
absolute idea of Hegel, but as far as history is concerned, in 
society itself : in the conditions of production and exchange. In 
what manner, however, and with the aid of what forces these 
conditions manifest themselves and compel recognition, i. e., by 
what forces economic and social development is impelled, also the 
laws underlying these movements, upon these questions Marx 
threw light with the aid of the dialectic mode of investigation : a 



FIRST LECTURE 25 

method which he had accepted from Hegel and applied with a 
sovereign mastery. 

III. 

After yonng Marx had graduated with honors from the Trier 
Gymnasium, he matriculated at the University of Bonn. It was 
the fondest wish of his father, to see his son also a member o'f 
the legal profession — a wish, however, which was not to be 
realized. In Bonn he spent several terms without pursuing any 
definite studies, and in 1836 we find Marx at the University of 
Berlin. Here he was for the first time brought in contact with 
Hegel's philosophy and some prominent Young-Hegelians like 
Bruno Bauer, David Strauss, Ludwig Feuerbach, etc., who be- 
friended him. As his interest in these problems and studies grew, 
his nominal studies or ''Brotstudium," as the Germans call the 
grind for an income, were sadly neglected and removed ever 
farther from the centre of his work and future plans and aspira- 
tions. However, as a dutiful son, he continued these studies, but 
without any great enthusiasm or success, and for the sole reason 
of avoiding a conflict with his father and to create a source of 
income for the future. He was also a passionate lover and be- 
throthed to Jenny von Westfalen, his slightly senior playmate and 
the prettiest and most refined damsel in Trier. When we peruse 
some of the youthful poems of Marx, we can about realize the 
consuming love which he cherished for his beloved, and also how 
anxiously he looked forward to their wedding day, and how 
gladly he would have presented a safe and sunny future as a 
wedding gift to his Jenny. 

However, stronger than every other desire there burned in 
Marx a yearning for knowledge — a desire to know. With an 
insatiable thirst he entered upon the study of the various sciences, 
however, specializing in philosophy and history. He consulted 
scholarly treatises, contemporary life and closely dissected and 
questioned scientific systems. Overstudy and also the gruelling 
inner conflict between the feverish wish for clarity and the inex- 



26 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

orable duty endangered his health. The future was also beclouded 
by a threatening conflict with his father. An early death of Hein- 
rich Marx, however, saved Marx from these ungratifying scenes. 
The youth remained steadfast in his determination. With tena- 
cious perseverance, he devoted himself to his purposes and aims 
in life; he battled bravely with the sciences; toiled endlessly and 
unceasingly to achieve results; and he was rewarded for his 
untiring efforts, not over night mind you, but after many years 
of profound and conscientious research. Craving for knowledge 
and desirous of doing things, Marx, as a disciple of Hegel, delved 
through history, and particularly the history of his time, in 
search for the absolute idea: the idea that governs and propels 
everything in life. He desired to study the manifestations of this 
force in the intellectual progress of the people, in the form and 
institutions of social life; he desired to vision direction and aim 
of its effect clearly, in order to be able to serve evolution con- 
scientiously. However, this process of self-enlightenment netted 
him at first, outside of a few fruitful doubts, only some starting 
points to his later conception of history. Only after years he 
found, instead of the absolute idea, the real driving power behind 
social development ; he found the force that has shaped, determin- 
ed and influenced ideas in history ever since the day society was 
organized upon private-property, namely: the class-struggles, 
which again are unchained and have their origin and aim in the 
conditions of production and exchange prevailing in a community 
at a certain historic period. 

Before he was able to arrive at above conclusions, before he 
could formulate his findings into a clear and scientific theory, 
conditions compelled him to discontinue his studies, and with a 
dissertation on the "Philosophy of Epicure" he graduated, al- 
though not present, from the University of Jena in 1841, receiving 
the degree of doctor of philosophy. He had hoped and harbored 
the fond ambition to serve the cause of intellectual freedom, by 
becoming a lecturer at one of the German universities, but the 



FIRST LECTURE 27 

dismissal of his friend Bruno Bauer in Bonn showed this antici- 
pation to he a dream : a f ata-morgana in a desert of bureaucratic 
intolerance. And when we today compare these events with 
conditions in our universities and other seats of learning, when 
we take the disciplining and the spectacular and unwarranted 
dismissal of Scott Nearing from the University of Pennsylvania 
as an analogy, we will be compelled to conclude that these insti- 
tutions are as of yore dominated by class interests of the bour- 
geoisie and everything else but agencies of free thought and 
investigation. Academic liberty always was and is a fetish upon 
whose altar high-sounding phrases are sacrificed, but which like 
so many of our "inalienable rights" is in reality but one of the 
many conventional lies. In the face of these insurmountable 
obstacles, Marx decided to become a writer. In 1842, still resid- 
ing in Bonn, he started to contribute to the "Rheinische Zeitung," 
published in Cologne, and whose editorship he shortly afterwards 
assumed. This paper was founded by a circle of class-conscious 
capitalists of the Rhineland ; it was intended to be the official 
organ of the Rhenish bourgeoisie, and as such advocated in a 
moderate form such constitutional changes and liberties, as con- 
ceived by and were to the benefit of the capitalist class. It sulked 
against the so-called god-ordained powers of monarchy, aristo- 
cracy and bureaucracy; but as a whole the paper presented a 
somewhat lame opposition — but it was at least an opposition to 
the forces of reaction so dominant and provokingly brutal in 
Prussia before the memorable March days of 1848. Under the 
editorial guidance of Marx, this opposition gained in force and 
sharpness. He stormed against the censorship and advocated its 
abolition, voicing the demand for a free and unfettered press. 
As a political writer, he severely criticized the proceedings of the 
Rhenish Diet, and we also detect here the first manifestations of 
an awakening interest in Marx in economic conditions. He 

i 

earnestly grapples with these problems to obtain a clear concep- 
tion, but also feels here the insufficiency of Hegel's philosophy. 
The problem of the lumber thefts and the poverty amongst the 



28 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

wine-growers on the Mosel furnished Marx with actual material 
in this connection. These peasants had been alternately exploited 
and oppressed by the officials of the god-ordained government 
and unscrupulous usurers, and found in Marx a warm and fear- 
less attorney. The struggle in behalf of these impoverished 
peasants was a thorn in the sides of the government, and only 
tended to swell the already lengthy list of treasonable offences 
and undesirable acts committed by this now formidable opponent. 
Shortly and upon explicit decree of Wilhelm IV. the suppression 
of the "Rheinische Zeitung" was ordered. Marx was practically 
now without any means of support and also, and that depressed 
him still more, without a field of public activity, and without the 
least possibility of creating such a field in Germany. In less 
than two years, it had forcefully dawned upon Marx that any 
work which aimed at the liberation of Germany from feudal 
domination was nigh impossible on German soil. He, conse- 
quently, decided to go to Paris — the center of political life and 
libertarian aspirations. Before his departure, he was wedded to 
Jenny von Westfalen after a courtship of seven years. 

The material basis for the support of the family in Paris was 
to be created by the Deutsch-Franzosischen Jahrbucher ("Ger- 
man-French Annals"), which Marx contemplated publishing in 
collaboration with Arnold Ruge. The "Deutsch-Franzosischen 
Jahrbucher" were to be a forum for the free expression and cul- 
tivation of radical thought; the periodical was to be a literary 
gauntlet thrown down to the conservative and sterile elements in 
Europe ; and finally aimed to become a factor in the marshalling, 
organizing and intellectually clarifying the republican or demo- 
cratic forces in Germany. As such, the annals were bound to 
become a medium for the continuation, development and perfec- 
tion of Marx's search and studies of the driving forces and laws 
in social life. In this connection it may be of interest to cite the 
following lines of a letter which Ruge addressed to Feuerbach on 
this subject. Amongst others Ruge writes: "We intend to publish 
the "German-French Annals" in a foreign country, and desire to 



FIRST LECTURE 29 

'discard entirely the mediocre scholastic junk of the old almanachs 
with the end in view of uniting ourselves with prominent French- 
men like Leroux, Proudhon, Louis Blanc, may be Lamartine — 
Lammendis and Cormenin are probably neither procurable or 
usable — to such an extent, as to have them directly contribute to 
the journal (French can be read by everybody) and also to function 
on the editorial board. The title and prospect we will then issue 
together, and thus suddenly set up the intellectual alliance of 
these two nations." The first and last copy of the "German 
French Annals" appeared in March, 1844, as a double number; 
it consisted of 236 pages, and contained contributions from Marx. 
Engels, Ruge, Heine, Bakunin, Herwegh, Feuerbach and several 
others. A series of causes is responsible for the early failure of 
this most creditable venture. First the financial resources of the 
undertaking were insufficient and practically consumed in the 
publication of the first issue. Secondly, the conditions in Ger- 
many were not conducive to the life and development of the 
periodical. In Germany its circulation was forbidden, and the 
smuggling of the books over the border was attended with heavy 
costs and ungratifying difficulties. Neither did the collaboration of 
the French waiters, as anticipated and solicited, materialize. 
Finally the break and everlasting disagreement of Marx with 
Ruge was a tributary cause which aided in undermining the 
young life of the periodical. Marx, who through his historic 
philosophical conception was daily creating a wider gulf between 
himself and his associates, was unable to accept or subscribe to 
the views of Ruge on many important topics, until these differ- 
ences culminated into an open quarrel that finally led to a sever- 
ance of connections. These tempestuous days of strife and 
uncertainty reached their climax, when in 1845 Marx was ex- 
pelled from Paris by the liberal government of that fossilized 
citizen-king, Louis Phillipe. Behind this act the untiring efforts 
of the Prussian government were plainly visible: a government 
which in this surreptitious manner sought to gratify its. base lust 
for revenge on the hated and much feared revolutionist. 



30 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

Poor in material possessions but rich in intellectual values, 
Marx and his young wife were compelled to leave Paris in search 
of a new exile. In Paris he definitely concluded his discourse 
with Hegelianism, i. e., with the Hegelian conception that pro- 
claimed the absolute idea as the driving force in historic evolu- 
tion. The great French Revolution served him as a mine of 
historic treasures from which he drew lesson after lesson of 
social significance. And the profound study of this gigantic 
epoch in the evolution of mankind, so ably laid down in "The 
Holy Family ; or a Critical Critique against Bruno Bauer and his 
Followers," finally ripened his materialist conception oif history. 
In the manifestations of this period of colossal upheavals, he 
found the real potential force that set the idea in motion, the force 
behind all ideological activity, and the force which was the gen- 
erator of this as well as all previous historical dramas, namely: 
the struggle of clashes. And the formulation of this conception 
also furnished him with an explanation of the passionate and tur- 
bulent life in Paris — a life which was but the forerunner of the 
February revolution. With the aid of the material gathered in 
Paris, he was able to estimate the value which the elements of 
production and exchange played in social evolution, and finally 
concluded that these were the ultimately determining forces, the 
so-called basic powers, in social development. In his book "The 
Holy Family," addressing his erstwhile Hegelian comrades on 
this subject, he scornfully hurls the following expressive ques- 
tions at them : "Do these gentlemen think that they can under- 
stand the first word of history so long as they exclude the rela- 
tions of man to nature, natural science and industry? Do they 
believe that they can actually comprehend any epoch without 
grasping the industry of the period, the immediate method of 
production in actual life?" 

Equipped with this theoretical key, Marx was able to discern, 
dissect and explain the complicated and confused political atmo- 
sphere in France as well as in the other European countries. 
Everywhere the powerful rays shed by the searchlight of Histor- 



FIRST LECTURE 31 

ical Materialism penetrated the superficial but popular miscon- 
ceptions of political issues ; everywhere they laid open the deeper, 
underlying laws of social activity ; and everywhere they traced the 
basic force, animating this activity and formulating these issues, 
to the material conditions in society. And when Marx ascertained 
the factors governing social activity and found them to rest in 
the prevailing system of production of a given historic period, 
then he had also found the answer to the question of the ultimate 
outcome of the class war: an answer that contained the goal and 
course for future working-class activity. 

It is to Frederick Engels that Marx owes the fruitful sug- 
gestions which led to this epoch-making and revolutionary dis- 
covery. Engels, filled with libertarian aspirations and in his 
"Sturm und Drang" phase of life, had come to Paris in 1844. He 
became acquainted with Marx and quickly attached to him. This 
acquaintance was to result into a lifelong friendship : a friend- 
ship that was to be cemented by many years of literary collab- 
oration and activity in the labor movement, and which furnishes 
s:lent testimony to the beautiful devotion with which these 
master-minds served the cause embodying their principles and 
ideals — the cause of the disinherited and exploited workers. 
Engels was also a graduate from the Hegelian school. It was, 
however, not History which had sharpened and trained his 
vision to perceive the laws of social development, but the indus- 
trial conditions of highly developed capitalist England. Engels 
was the son of a prominent manufacturer in Barmen, a highly 
developed industrial city in the Rhenish Province, who enter- 
tained quite some business relations with England and had a 
branch office of his undertaking in Manchester. Actual business 
practice had given him a thorough insight into the structure and 
the various phases of capitalism, and upon this solid foundation 
he based his final conceptions of the role played by the conditions 
of production and exchange in historical evolution. In conjunc- 
tion with these practical observations, the fearful effects of the 
capitalist system in England flashed the importance of private 



32 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

ownership under capitalist production upon his mind, and ex- 
posed to him the source of the innumerable contradictions so 
peculiar to capitalist society. Following these thoughts to their 
logical conclusion, it was but natural, and also only the conse- 
quence of a firmly established historical conception, to conceive of 
the economic necessity of converting the private ownership in 
the means of production into communistic property. And in the 
above rough, imperfect and still vague conclusions and apprecia- 
tions, we can see the raw material out of which the Materialist 
Conception of History was constructed, and which together with 
this theory furnished the basic elements necessary for the estab- 
lishment of scientific Socialism. It was up to Marx and Engels 
to clarify, amplify and develop these elementary truths, and this 
they have masterfully accomplished in the many years of joint 
efforts. Today the fruit of these efforts can be seen in the clas- 
sical Socialist philosophy: a philosophy which has withstood the 
onslaughts of the master-minds of bourgeois intelligence ; a philo- 
sophy, which furnishes scientific and incontrovertible knowledge 
appertaining to the cause, goal, driving forces and course of 
historic life; and a philosophy which is truly the beaconlight of 
the proletariat in its struggle for emancipation. 

The intellectual struggle of these two men for clarity, this 
slow process full of doubt, speculation and relentless self-criti- 
cism, has been productive of brilliant documents. In these days 
Marx wrote "Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie" (a 
criticism of Hegel's Philosophy of Law), "Zur Judenfrage" 
("The Jewish Question"), being a reply to Bruno Bauer's meta- 
physical treatment of the subject as visioned by a historical ma- 
terialist, and "Die Heilige Familie" ("The Lloly Family") to 
which I have already referred in the preceding paragraph, and to 
which also Engels contributed. From Engels we find "Umrisse 
zu, einer Kritik der Nationalokonomie" ("An Outline to a Cri- 
tique of Political Economy"), "Die Lage Englands" ("England's 
Situation"), and later that masterly sociological study "Die Lage 



FIRST LECTURE 33 

der Arbeitenden Klasse in England" ("The Condition of the 
Working Class in England in 1844"). 

During his short stay in Paris, Marx also familiarized him- 
self with the various systems and sects of the French Socialists. 
Particularly in these years of revolutionary unrest, their teachings 
enjoyed quite some popularity in Paris, especially amongst the 
workers and the small bourgeois. To Marx, as a student of all 
social manifestations, these Socialist tendencies were intensely 
interesting. He had received but meagre and incomplete news of 
these activities in Germany, and as a conscientious investigator 
and student, he was averse to forming' an opinion or reaching a 
conclusion until the actual facts were at his disposal and had been 
examined. His stay in Paris enabled him to receive first hand 
information, and to study the theoretical and practical aspects of 
these movements at their original sources. The first product of 
this diligent work was his sharp criticism of Proudhon's book 
"La Philosophic de la Misere" ("The Philosophy of Poverty"), 
published in 1846. This critical work appeared in Brussels in 
1847, under the significant title "La Misere de la Philosophic" 
("The Poverty of Philosophy"). Aside from the important fact, 
that this book completely shattered an obsession with which even 
up to this late day some Socialists and particularly Anarchists 
are still taken up, namely that abject poverty is the generator of 
and a prerequisite to revolutionary vitality, it also contained the 
first comprehensive exposition of Historical Materialism. Here 
in his quest for knowledge, Marx for the first time came in close 
contact with Socialist and revolutionary workingmen — an inter- 
course which was to be of far-reaching importance to his future 
work. 

Driven out of Paris in 1845, Marx turns his steps towards 
Brussels. Completely disregarding his really precarious material 
conditions, and in the face of dire poverty, harassed by the police, 
Marx continues his activities as a serious student and indefatig- 
able fighter. With an enthusiasm that recognized no bounds, he 



34 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

worked amongst the progressive elements in the labor movement 
of this city, and to the critical analysis of Proudhon's middle-class 
Utopianism, he adds a scathing refutation of the confused, hazy 
sentimental German Communism of the Weitling school. His 
lectures on "Wage-Labor and Capital," held before a Democratic 
Workingmen's Club, and the speech on "Free Trade"; also the 
treatise on "Free Trade or Protective Tariff," published in the 
"Deutschen Briisseler Zeitung," show the marked and growing 
interest which Marx begins to manifest for economic problems. 
We note here the penetrating thoroughness with which he 
visualizes and dissects capitalist production, in order to intelli- 
gently appreciate its historic character, and in order to be able to 
define and deduce therefrom the position of the proletariat to the 
miscellaneous questions of the day. Through their untiring ac- 
tivity and distinguished faculties, Marx and Engels quickly be- 
came the centre of a brilliant circle of intellectuals in Brussels. 
This circle was made up of heterogeneous elements, including 
impatient Democrats and Socialists from the various parts of 
Germany, amongst them Wilhelm Wolf, to whom Marx later 
dedicated his masterpiece "Capital," Moses Hess, Robert Weit- 
ling, Ferdinand Freiligrath and others. And through his per- 
sonal agitation and influence, even more so than through his con- 
tributions to the "Deutsche Briisseler Zeitung," Marx shaped 
and molded the intellectual development of these German, Rus- 
sian and French exiles and revolutionists, and thus actually pre- 
pared and assisted in whipping on the evolution of things in these 
countries. In the Rhineland, Westphalia, Silesia and other parts 
of Germany his friends and disciples were openly or secretly 
carrying on the propaganda, always in the thickest of the fray, 
and thus their call and agitation very ominously announces the 
approach of the revolutionary year. 

The first victory for Marxist principles — a victory of inter- 
national magnitude — was scored, when Marx and Engels received 
an encouraging invitation from England. London had been for 
years the seat of a society calling itself the League of the Just. 



FIRST LECTURE 35 

This organization was composed of revolutionary elements of 
various shades, and had been originally a conspiratory society 
devoted to the Young German idea, an offshoot of Mazzini's 
Young Europe agitation. In 1847, when Marx and Engels were 
invited to join the league, this organization represented the only 
internationally organized expression of the European proletariat. 
Its principles were a mixture of French-English Communism 
evolved and born with the aid of German philosophy : They were 
teachings as mysterious and hazy as the mystery with which their 
propagators surrounded themselves. After a thorough discussion 
with Joseph Moll, a representative of the League, Marx and 
Engels decided to join the organization, and reorganize the move- 
ment along lines fully in accord with their principles : the prin- 
ciples of scientific Socialism in the making. These principles of 
Marx in 1847, as today, strove and aimed primarily at the polit- 
ical unification of the laboring classes into a compact proletarian 
political party, pursuing ■ a definite revolutionary aim, flowing 
from a clear and scientific conception of the workers' position in 
society. As we have seen, these principles were not the result of 
abstract Utopian speculations, evolved as a protest against the 
barbaric injustice and inhumanity of bourgeois society, and pro- 
claiming to be the only true offspring of pure reason, divine 
justice and true humanity, but were rather the product of a 
thorough analysis of the capitalist mode of production : an 
analysis which exposed the origin of profit or surplus value, and 
thereby projected the inevitable collapse of capitalism. Of course, 
such principles based upon the bedrock of sound economics were 
bound to collide with the Utopianism on the one hand and the 
Nihilism on the other of the various intellectuals in the League 
of the Just. Marx anticipated this conflict, but was also con- 
vinced that the abstract speculative idiosyncracies of a Cabet or 
Weitling were no match for the coherent and irrefutable argu- 
ments and recommendations contained in the "Communist Mani- 
festo. " In November and December Marx and Engels attended 
a Congress of the League in London, and the message of Marx, 



36 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

which he recommended as the theoretical basis and working pro- 
gramme of the organization and which was practically a rough 
draft of the famous Manifesto, was received with great enthu- 
siasm. The secret organization of the League of the Just was 
reorganized into a propaganda society calling itself the Commu- 
nist League. Marx and Engels were authorized to draw up a 
document setting forth the fundamental principles of the League ; 
and at the beginning of that stormy, revolutionary year of 1848 
the most remarkable and epoch-making document in the annals 
of history appeared, a document in which the working-class for 
the first time since the inception of modern capitalism proclaimed 
itself the deadly enemy of bourgeois society: The Communist 
Manifesto. 

In the "Communist Manifesto" we view the concerted efforts 
of Marx and Engels to present to the world a concise and scien- 
tific summary of their ideas. This document can without any 
undue exaggeration be called the birth certificate of scientific So- 
cialism, and was destined to become the declaration of industrial 
emancipation for the world's workers. In the "Communist Ma- 
nifesto" for the first time scientific Socialism speaks to the world, 
and proudly it proclaims its distinctive difference when compared 
with the childish antics of Utopian Socialism or Democratic Re- 
formism. In a masterly manner and on a grand scale historical 
development is here analyzed, and the causes and forces actuating 
this process are exposed to the reader. This also leads to a dis- 
section and scathing criticism of the capitalist order, winding up 
with the convincing demonstration that capitalist society bears 
within its womb the material germs of Communism; also that 
this society at the same time rears in the working-class the might 
necessary to execute the inexorable dictate of historical evolu- 
tion. And in order to make the workers conscious of their his- 
toric mission, this masterpiece of keen scientific analysis, concise- 
ness and literary beauty concludes with that world-renowned 
battle-cry : "Proletarians of all countries, unite!" 



FIRST LECTURE 37 

To quote the words of Klara Zetkin, a celebrated German 
Marxist : "The Communist Manifesto, aside from its historic and 
political significance, will remain a conspicuous monument in the 
literature of the world; as long as thoughts possess a sense and 
words have a sound." 






SECOND LECTURE 



SECOND LECTURE 41 



I. 

Workingmen and Workingwomen : 

THE "Communist Manifesto" was now to be considered the 
theoretical basis upon which all future activity of the 
League's members had to rest: all subsequent propaganda, acts 
and the tactics flowing therefrom were to be evolved in accord or 
along the lines with the axiomatic principles and aims promulgated 
in this historic document. However, historic conditions soon 
compelled the various national groups and members to somewhat 
loosen their connections with the League, which gave rise to a 
condition of affairs that bordered upon dissolution of the young 
organization. Through the compelling force of social events, 
events which finally culminated into the various revolutionary 
uprisings of 1848, the workers were forced to unite with 
the bourgeoisie in their respective countries, and battle 
unitedly for constitutional government and civil liberties. This 
struggle of the proletariat and capitalist class against feudal pre- 
rogatives gave Marx and his followers the opportunity to propa- 
gate their principles in the open : to present for the first time in 
history the workers' position in this revolutionary drama before 
the public. 

The February revolution in Paris, a revolution that deposed 
Louis Phillipe, the citizen-king, was the signal for a general up- 
rising against despotism in Europe. This insurrection of the 
industrial capitalists of Paris against the government of the large 
agrarian interests (bourgeois as well as feudal) was the summons 
of social evolution to adapt the obsolete political organs in capi- 
talist society to the changed economic conditions : conditions which 
were retarded in their growth and development by the anti- 
quated, reactionary and abnormal character of the existing politi- 
cal institutions. In Germany, Austria, Hungary and Italy the 



42 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

smoldering fires of revolt also burst into bright flames, eating 
and devouring the worm-eaten and brittle social and political 
remnants of past ages. Everywhere the representatives of mod- 
ern society vigorously fought for political recognition and rights, 
and everywhere, even in arch-reactionary Prussia, the so-called 
god-ordained ruling powers were compelled to capitulate before 
the united onslaughts of the workers and the bourgeoisie. 

The powers in Belgium, which had not been affected by the 
revolutionary wave, sought to insure their tranquillity by in- 
augurating a most brutal and unwarranted persecution against 
Marx and his followers. Under the charge of being alien agita- 
tors and inflamers to riot, they were subjected to the most infam- 
ous indignities by the governmental officials and finally expelled. 
Marx and comrades were virtually hounded over the boundary 
line; the former, in the haste of the moment, being compelled to 
leave his young wife behind, at the tender mercies of the uphold- 
ers of law and order. These chivalrous authorities, delighted with 
the opportunity, gratified their lust for "revenge" by craftily and 
brutally torturing helpless and penniless Jenny Marx. 

Marx retraced his steps to Paris, having been honored by the 
victorious revolutionary government there with an invitation to 
return to do practical work. After the outbreak of the revolu- 
tion, the central committee or executive offices of the Communist 
League had been transferred from London to Brussels. How- 
ever, through the autocratic expulsion by the police, these con- 
nections were broken up and Marx was momentarily entrusted 
with the management of the League's affairs, being also charged 
with the authority to organize a new executive body in Paris. 
However, Marx's stay in Paris was not to be of a long duration. 

As stated before, in Prussia the revolutionary wave had 
swept away the god-ordained, feudal despotism of the Hohen- 
zollerns. Humiliated and trembling, the king of Prussia ac- 
cepted the generous but foolish gift of his crown out of the 
blood-stained hands of the barricade-fighters, thereby accepting 



SECOND LECTURE 43 

a crown which made him king not by the grace of god, as he had 
so haughtily contended before the revolution, but by the grace of 
the people — a crown that was restored to Friedrich Wilhelm IV. 
in return for certain constitutional guarantees, guarantees which 
he subsequently as readily annulled as he had conceded them. 

Under such turbulent conditions, it was impossible for Marx 
to stay in Paris. He, who had been so often accused of treason- 
able motives and proclaimed as a man without a country, he, the 
outcast, was drawn by an irresistible passion, a feverish longing, 
to the fatherland. Taking the given historic conditions as a 
criterion, he felt and knew that at home was the field upon which 
he could and would fight with the greatest and most telling force 
for the revolution in Europe. The ship of the German bourgeois 
revolution had followed in the wake of the Parisian uprising, and 
in this revolution the proletariat for the first time had affirmed 
its interests as a class, unfolding the banner of the Industrial Re- 
public. And in Germany the bourgeoisie had only shattered the 
absolute monarchy with the massive fists of the proletariat. It 
was, therefore, easily conceivable, why in the beginning the bour- 
geoisie watched the rapid progress of the revolution with anxiety, 
and saw in this progress more an element of danger than victory. 
This growing class-consciousness of the working-class had sent 
a cold chill down the spine of the capitalists, and had greatly 
dampened the spirit of elation over the immediate victory. How- 
ever, one thing was certain: If the revolution were to run its full 
course in Germany, i. e., if the revolution were to develop into a 
full-fledged bourgeois revolution, a revolution that would sweep 
away the last vestige of feudal prerogatives, then all the forces 
of the bourgeoisie would have to be enlisted in its cause and 
zvhipped on to a determined struggle. It was clear to 
Marx that this revolution could only be victorious, if it 
downed, together with the brutal forces of reaction, also 
the secret fears of the bourgeoisie for the proletariat. 
And in this peculiar creation of history, Marx saw the 



44 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

duty which for the time being would tax the utmost revo- 
lutionary energies of the Communists. And that Germany 
was destined to be the next field of battle of the Communists, was 
to be found in another deduction made from a peculiar combi- 
nation of historic facts. It was Marx's contention that if the 
achievements of the revolution were not to be eradicated by a 
counter- force, if the waves of the revolution were not to break on 
the shores of Russian despotism, then, he maintained, it would 
be absolutely imperative to concentrate all the revolutionary forces 
on the constitutional or republican development of Germany. A 
revolutionized Germany — revolutionized in the fullest demo- 
cratic conception — he deduced, was bound to be the most massive 
bulwark of Democracy in Europe. And this deduction was strik- 
ingly verified by subsequent events. Not only did Russian despot- 
ism subsequently throw down and drown in seas of blood the 
heroic struggle of the Hungarians for independence ; not only did 
300,000 troops of the Russian despot shatter the revolution in 
Austria and save the Hapsburg dynasty; but the failure. of the 
revolution in Germany — the failure to create that bulwark of 
Democracy — was bound to very materially affect the Russian 
people's struggle for liberty at a later date. During the Russian 
Revolution and after, particularly in the stormy years of 1905 to 
1906, the German government viewed with open fear this gallant 
i-t niggle of a people for constitutionalism, apprehending with 
anxiety the effect which a successful conclusion of this uprising 
would have upon the German people. It, therefore, sought to aid 
Russian despotism in every possible way to crush the revolt. In 
the capacity of henchman of the Czar this government, to the 
eternal shame of the German people, arrested thousands upon 
thousands of the flower of Russian Democracy in Germany; 
hounded thousands upon thousands of Russian students from the 
high-schools and universities; and, in true Russian fashion, 
searched houses and intimidated the people against the much- 
hated "reds." And for what purpose? Did the German govern- 



SECOND LECTURE 45 

ment expel or try these undesirable residents for a breach of the 
law or some other valid reason? No, the imperial government 
was paying its debt of 1849 to the "little father"; the imperial 
government saw in Russian autocracy a citadel of absolutism 
and a bulwark, not only against political Democracy, but also 
against the rising tide of Socialism — the spectre of which was 
truly haunting Europe and particularly Germany. With fiendish 
glee Junkerdom and its awe-stricken capitalist lackeys surren- 
dered thousands of Russian fugitives, who had deemed them- 
selves safely out of the reach of the bloody monster, to- the 
executioners of the Czar. And this identical government has to- 
day the brazen audacity to bewail and indict erstwhile Russian 
barbarism, calling itself a pillar of culture. 

In Paris, Marx and Engels organized a communist club of 
German workingmen. Herwegh, the genial poet, was at that 
time attempting to form a battallion of German republicans for 
the purpose of invading Germany. Marx very emphatically dis- 
couraged this adventurous and highly spectacular and purely 
sentimental movement, and advised the workers to return to Ger- 
many individually and unobserved, and to there begin a revo- 
lutionary agitation amongst their fellow-workers. 

In April we find Marx in Cologne, one of the most important 
centers of events and the heart of the highly developed and indus- 
trialized Rhine district. He had preferred Cologne to Berlin, 
because the Code Napoleon, a legacy of the Napoleonic era and 
the French Revolution, insured to him a greater field of activity 
and more unmolested movement. At least here political trials 
were not brought before professional judges of the feudal- 
bureaucratic state, but tried by a jury. As stated before, in the 
Rhineland the capitalist mode of production had revolutionized 
conditions more thoroughly than either in the East of Prussia or 
the southern part of Germany, consequently, the capitalist class 
was here more progressive and democratic, and more inclined to 
a vigorous struggle for a constitutional government. The prole- 



46 KARL MARX : THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

tariat, reared by such conditions, was, therefore, comparatively 
large and intensely revolutionary. 

Marx was here confronted with the task to put the theories 
laid down in the "Communist Manifesto" into practice, i. e., to 
apply the principles of scientific Socialism to concrete historical 
conditions. And how splendidly he fulfilled this difficult duty 
of making the workers conscious of their role and duties in this 
great struggle of the awakening bourgeoisie against Feudalism; 
how clearly he emphasized the historical necessity of constitu- 
tional government to the development of capitalism — a develop- 
ment which was inseparably interwoven with the growth of an 
independent working-class movement — can be best appreciated 
through a perusal of his writings of and on this period. In all 
the leading cities, friends and disciples of Marx and members of 
the Communist League agitated and worked along the lines dic- 
tated by the "Communist Manifesto." The turbulent times with 
their various political issues, wage struggles and strikes were 
thus skilfully exploited and utilized to bring home the message 
of Socialism and independent class action to the workers. Every- 
where clubs and organizations of workingmen sprang up. After 
the memorable March days, a Central Committee of Workingmen 
with the Communist Born at the head was organized in Berlin. 
Through the untiring efforts of this committee, the Brotherhood 
of Workingmen, an organization that was to embrace and unite 
all the workers in Germany, was organized in August. Every- 
where the workers were seen fighting in the front ranks against 
the powers of absolutism; everywhere they solidly stood their 
ground, bravely repulsing the onslaughts of reaction; and wher- 
ever they battled most courageously and were nigh unconquer- 
able the communist influence was most markedly recognizable. 

This epoch-making phase in the development of Germany is 
pre-eminently the work of Marx : it is an achievement that was 
made possible through the intelligence shed by the rays of His- 
torical Materialism — a philosophy which for the first time in 



SECOND LECTURE 47 

history explained to the disinherited class its place and function 
in particularly the bourgeois revolution and society in general. 
In the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" ("New Rhenish Gazette"), a 
daily newspaper, Marx sought to erect a beaconlight of the ex- 
treme democratic and communist wing of the revolution. The 
first number of this paper was published on June 1st, 1848, and 
the last issue appeared on May 19th, 1849. The short but stormy 
life of the paper, therefore, begins and ends with the fortune and 
misfortune of the revolution respectively. The paper was founded 
as an "Organ of Democracy" ; however, under the editorship of 
Marx, it soon became an undaunted and fearless advocate of 
communist theories, viewing and criticising current events from 
the basic premises as formulated in the "Communist Manifesto" 
and conceived with the aid of Historical Materialism. Here the 
Materialist Conception of History was submitted to the acid test 
and, needless to state, the theory's application to current occur- 
rences and the results obtained thereby furnished convincing evi- 
dence of its soundness. By the light of Historical Materialism, 
Marx explained the revolution as a normal and legitimate histori- 
cal process, a process which was but the political reflex of an 
economic revolution that had but shortly preceded it. Marx, 
again with the aid of the Materialist Conception of History, was 
able to combine his passionate revolutionary temperament with 
a cool and well-balanced historical intellect : he appreciated and 
judged the present by the past, and was thus able to intelligently 
vision the future. 

Marx was a journalist and editor in the broader conception of 
the term, and in this connection he was ably assisted by Frederick 
Engels, the two Wolffs, Ferdinand Freiligrath, the genial poet, 
and others. Equipped with a clear insight and creative revolu- 
tionary vitality, the ''Neue Rheinische Zeitung" was able to show 
the way to the democratic and Socialist forces. And the "Neue 
Rheinische Zeitung" was a fighting organ, that engaged and 
grappled actively with the problems of the day. As emphasized 



48 KARL MARX : THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

before, these problems, and the historical conditions of which 
they were born, compelled the Socialists and workers to fight 
as the extreme radical wing in the army of Democracy. The 
prize of victory and object of the struggle were to save the revolu- 
tion, and thereby to insure the political rights and liberties 
necessary to the proletariat for the preparation of its own revo- 
lution — a revolution which Marx perceived germinating in the 
womb of the same society that he and his class were assisting 
in its struggle to emancipate itself completely from the yoke of 
Feudalism. For these reasons the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" was 
compelled to engage in democratic politics; it was compelled to 
fight with and for the bourgeoisie, but it discharged itself of this 
duty creditably, by steadily keeping the ultimate goal and things 
of permanent interest to the proletariat in view. In other words, 
the bourgeois revolution was but a means to the end, a stepping 
stone, to Marx and his followers ; the end, the aim to be kept in 
mind, was — the proletarian revolution. In consequence, the 
"Neue Rheinische Zeitung" did not seek to enlist the support of 
the luke-warm democrats with the aid of compromise and flat- 
tery, but attempted to whip them on and wrest them out of their 
lethargy, through a biting and unmerciful criticism. To this 
organ, as stated before, the revolution was an imperious com- 
mand of the hour; a command which the bourgeoisie could not 
ignore but had to follow : a command clearly formulated by the 
force of material conditions and the scientific knowledge of social 
development flowing therefrom. 

The immediate demands of the Communist Party in Ger- 
many were, due to the above-mentioned causes, therefore, far 
more moderate than the so-called minimum demands formulated 
in the "Communist Manifesto" for the rising revolution. They 
were demands chiefly created by the backward conditions of the 
economic life in that country, and were intended to improve the 
social conditions of the small farmer, artisan and laborer in gen- 
eral. The cardinal political demands were the undivided republic 



SECOND LECTURE 49 

and the creation of a citizen's army. As pointed out, to Marx the 
lepublic in her most developed form was the logical battleground 
for the settling of the differences between the capitalist class and 
the proletariat. He further conceived, that the struggle of the 
Socialists and workers would only begin in earnest, when the 
struggle for political enfranchisement or Democracy had ended. 
In the arming of the people, the citizen's army, Marx saw the 
victory of the revolution. To him constitutional questions were 
not primarily questions of right but questions of might. And time 
and time again the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" underscored that 
the best constitution was only a scrap of paper, if not supported 
or backed up by the armed might of the people. And the paper 
emphasized that all the nicely worded paragraphs and promising 
clauses in the constitution would not prevent the assassination 
of the people's rights, as long as the feudalic governments were 
able to "train their cannons on the untrained people." With 
bitter sarcasm the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung," therefore, crit- 
icised and chastised the garrulous politicians in the National 
Assembly at Frankfort, who were celebrating rhetorical orgies 
and entirely neglected to provide the might with which to enforce 
their legislative decisions. While these political clowns were 
philosophizing and taxing the people's patience to the utmost, 
the governments in Berlin and Vienna were in the meantime pre- 
paring to mow down the imperial constitution, the freedom of the 
press and assembly, universal suffrage, and all the gains and 
achievements of the revolutionary March days, together with its 
most energetic defenders, with volleys of grape-shot. The crit- 
icisms of the German and Prussian parliaments in Frankfort and 
Berlin respectively belong to the most brilliant publications of the 
"Neue Rheinische Zeitung." Here we recognize the superior 
creative power of Historical Materialism asserting itself on the 
field of politics; and to those narrow-minded dullards, who still 
think that history is made in parliaments, these angry and pas- 
sionate, but nevertheless profound critical essays are even at this 



50 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

late date of inestimable value. This critical work of the paper is 
an important part of a thorough discussion having for its basic 
theme the principles and programs of the liberals and democrats, 
and here Marx once and for all and unrelentlessly settles his 
account with the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie acknowledged 
receipt of this thorough spanking in its own peculiar way: the 
"liberty loving" democratic stockholders in the paper withdrawing 
their support from the enterprise. Thereby, however, the paper 
gained a firmer foothold amongst the workers. 

As previously emphasized, the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" 
as a beaconlight of Democracy was naturally a most con- 
sequent opponent of Feudalism. In no paper was Feudalism or 
feudal prerogatives fought with more vigor and intelligence than 
in Marx's paper. Knowing and fully appreciating the importance 
of the bourgeois revolution, through a thorough conception of 
Feudalism, Marx and his followers saw in the complete van- 
quishment of Feudalism a quicker and more favorable develop- 
ment of Capitalism, which in turn implied a quicker and more 
favorable development of a class-conscious Socialist movement. 
Therefore, Feudalism and absolutism did not have a more 
bitter enemy than the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung." And 
when the counter-revolution, the reaction, swept over Ger- 
many; when the treasonable and cowardly action of the 
terror-stricken bourgeoisie was everywhere perceivable; when 
Vienna had fallen and the troops of the king were 
butchering citizens in the streets of Berlin, even then Marx 
defied the victorious forces of reaction in his paper. And 
only after the insurrections had been put down in Elberfeld and 
Dresden, and the Rhineland had been practically turned into a 
veritable garrison, did the government undertake to suppress the 
"Xeue Rheinische Zeitung." On May 18th, 1849, Marx received 
his order of expulsion from Germany. Certain editors of the 
paper were already being persecuted by the courts, and still others 
were, as undesirable ''foreigners," sure to share Marx's fate. 



SECOND LECTURE 51 

Therefore, the expulsion of Marx was practically the death sen- 
tence of the paper. On May 19th the last number appeared with 
Freiligrath's defiant poem as a leader : 

Farewell of the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" 

May 19th, 1849. 

No open blow in an open fight, 

But with quips and with quirks they arraign me, 

By creeping treachery's secret blight 

The Western Calmucks have slain me. 

The fatal shaft in the dark did fly; 

I was struck by an ambushed knave; 

And here in the pride of my strength I lie, 

Like a corpse of a rebel brave! 

With a deathless scorn in my dying breath, 
In my hand the sword still cherished; 
''Rebellion" still for my shout of death, 
In my manhood untainted, I perished. 
Oh ! gladly, full gladly, the Pruss and the Czar 
The grass from my grave would clear; 
But Germany sends me, with Hungary far, 
Three salvoes to honor my bier. 

And the tattered poor man takes his stand, 

On my head the cold sods heaving; 

He casts them down with a diligent hand, 

Where the glory of toil is cleaving. 

And a garland of flowers and May he brought 

On my burning wounds to cast; 

His wife and his daughters the wreath had wrought 

When the work of the day was past. 



52 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

Farewell! farewell! thou turbulent life! 
Farewell to ye! armies engaging! 
Farewell! cloud canopied fields of strife, 
Where the greatness of war is raging! 
Farewell ! but not forever farewell ! 
They can not kill the spirit, my brother! 
In thunder I'll rise on the field where I fell, 
More boldly to fight out another. 

When the last of crowns like glass shall break, 

On the scene our sorrows have haunted, 

And the People the last dread "guilty" shall speak, 

On your side ye shall find me undaunted. 

On Rhine, or on Danube, in word and deed, 

Ye shall witness, true to his vow, 

On the wrecks of thrones, in the midst of the freed, 

The rebel who greets you now ! 

II. 

The "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" had been a piece of political 
revolutionary practice. The "Neue Rheinische Zeitung," how- 
ever, was Karl Marx. To speak somewhat with Engels : the edi- 
torial policy or course of the paper was "the dictatorship of 
Marx." 

Marx's revolutionary activity in this tumultuous period, how- 
ever, did not confine itself solely to literary or editorial work. He 
was also chairman of one of the three large democratic organ- 
izations in Cologne. And when we compare the courageous and 
unified stand of the Rhenish Democracy against the threatening 
onslaughts of reaction with the irresolute and in many cases 
cowardly manifestations of the bourgeoisie in other localities, 
then we begin to perceive not only the effects of a higher indus- 
trial and social development, but also the effects of the propa- 



SECOND LECTURE 53 

ganda resulting therefrom — Marx's propaganda. To illustrate: 
In Cologne a gigantic mass meeting declared itself for the So- 
cialist Republic, and when a false report was received that the 
military forces of the reactionary government were advancing 
to take possession of the city, barricades seemed to shoot like 
mushrooms out of the earth. In contradistinction to the loud- 
mouthed but cowardly bourgeoisie of Berlin, the Rhenish and 
Westphalian Democracy in the eventful November days was 
willing to support any opposition of the Prussian National 
Assembly with the utmost development of strength. And when 
this parliament called upon the people to answer the infamous 
usurpations of the so-called "god-ordained" autocracy with the 
refusal to pay taxes, i. e., with an economic strike of the bourgeoi- 
sie against the feudal polity, the provincial committee in Cologne, 
constituted out of Marx, Schapper and Becker, issued an order 
requesting all democratic unions to adhere to the decision of par- 
liament. The committee, furthermore, instructed the citizens to 
resist the forceful collection of taxes with all means of opposi- 
tion at their disposal ; to organize the citizen's army everywhere ; 
to supply those without means with arms and ammunition out 
of the communal funds or with the aid of voluntary contribu- 
tions; to, if necessary, appoint committees of safety, in order to 
be effectively prepared to meet force with force. The subsequent 
despicable and cowardly conduct of the Prussian National As- 
sembly broke this magnificent revolutionary spirit in the bud. 
However, Marx, Schapper and Becker were indicted before the 
grand- jury in Cologne on the charge of having incited the citizens 
to armed resistance against the civil officials and the army. Of 
greater importance than their acquittal was Marx's masterful 
speech of defense. 

After a year of unceasing struggle, Marx was finally con- 
vinced by the inexorable facts of history that the revolution was 
for the time being at an end ; that the bourgeoisie had obtained 
in the form of social and political reforms all it desired and was 



54 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

able to obtain with its limited vitality ; and that the bourgeoisie — 
the same bourgeoisie which had been until a few days ago fight- 
ing shoulder to shoulder with the workers against the junkers 
and their lackeys — would seek henceforth to ally itself with the 
remnants of feudality against the workers. The bourgeois class- 
interests dictated such an alliance with the limited feudal gov- 
ernment, an alliance which was bound to end with the peaceful 
conquest of the government by the bourgeoisie and the permea- 
tion of the remaining remnants of feudalism with the principles 
and ideas of capitalist production. As an eye-opener, pathfinder 
and pioneer, the revolution had brought to the capitalists all they 
were able to demand under the existing conditions, always taking 
the fear-inspiring Communist workingmen as an ominous sign- 
post into consideration. What the force of arms was unable to 
accomplish in the stormy year of 1848-49, without also endanger- 
ing the existence of capitalist society, economic evolution and its 
social and political creatures were bound to realize slowly step by 
step. Marx clearly foresaw these logical effects of an abortive 
revolution, and also saw therein a dictate to revise the tactics 
of the Communists. He fully appreciated that henceforth the 
workers would have to organize as a class; that the capitalist 
class would, as indicated before, quickly overshadow and absorb 
all other minor ruling classes in Germany, including the junkers; 
and that, therefore, in the future no pact or compromise with the 
"democratically inclined" bourgeois elements would be advisable. 
In the middle of April, 1849, Marx and his Communist friends 
laid down their offices in the provincial committee. The Work- 
ingmen's Club of Cologne severed its connection with the Demo- 
cratic Union of the Rhineland, and advocated participation of all 
radical organizations in a general congress of workingmen which 
the Brotherhood of Workers, organized by the Communist Born 
in Berlin, was organizing. 

With the publication of Marx's "Wage-Labor and Capital," 
the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" gave expression to these new 



SECOND LECTURE 55 

tactics. In this keen analysis of capitalist production, the class 
distinctions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie were 
heavily underscored, and thereby removed out of the shadow into 
which the great historical epoch, the revolution, had for the 
moment placed them. 

Exiled from his fatherland, Marx returned to Paris, where 
turbulent events seemed to be in the making. Here the capitalist 
class, living in constant fear of the proletariat, was preparing its 
coup d'etat. Of course, to the intriguing and conspiring govern- 
ment of Louis Napoleon this clear-headed, discerning and uncom- 
promising revolutionist was a most unwelcome visitor. There- 
fore, as early as July, Marx was exiled, this time by a bourgeois 
republic, to take up residence in the Department Morbihan, which 
is situated somewhere in an obscure corner of the Bretagne. Here 
Marx would have been condemned to political as well as scholarly 
inactivity — a thing which Louis Napoleon sought to accomplish 
by this move. Instead Marx, stripped of all means of subsistence 
and with no future prospects anywhere in sight, decided to go to 
London. He was certain that the revolution was only temporarily 
suppressed, that it was bound to rise again; and he, a stranded 
outcast with a family dependent upon him, started to work with 
renewed vigor to make the coming revolution a class-conscious 
proletarian revolution, as far as the material conditions of that 
period permitted and made such a distinct class movement pos- 
sible. His first task was the reorganization of the Communist 
League whose leading men were now practically all in London, 
but whose activity was henceforth mainly confined to Germany. 
In the "Neue Rheinische Revue" ("New Rhenish Review"), he 
sought to provide a fighting organ for the revolutionary forces in 
Germany. The "Neue Rheinische Revue" was published in 
Hamburg, and, of course, in close collaboration with Frederick 
Engels and other friends. Marx desired this periodical to be a 
continuation of the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung," and quite posi- 
tively hoped to turn this unpretentious monthly into a semi- 



56 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

monthly and then into a weekly on a large scale. And with a 
fresh outbreak of the revolution, which he anticipated would be 
the logical product of the reaction ruling with an iron hand in 
Germany, the review was to be turned into a powerful daily 
newspaper. As stated in the foregoing, however, Marx's plans 
were not to materialize. The tidal wave of the revolution, which 
had carried the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung," was gradually break- 
ing upon the rocks of a luke-warm bourgeois liberalism. The 
fears of the capitalist class for the thorough measures and class- 
aspirations of the proletariat were quickly turning their course 
into the less dangerous avenue of a parliamentary struggle 
against feudal prerogatives, a struggle in which the workers as a 
class were destined to play a historical role, but which forever 
separated them from the contaminating influence of bourgeois 
liberalism. But four numbers of the "Neue Rheinische Revue" 
were published and those under the most ungratifying pecuniary 
difficulties. Three copies appeared somewhat regularly up to 
April, 1850, and then after a lapse of four months, the review 
with a double-number had to definitely suspend publication. 

In this periodical Marx and Engels labored to prepare the 
ground for the anticipated approaching revolution. By subjecting 
the struggles of the preceding years, struggles in which they had 
so actively participated, to a critical examination, they sought to 
accomplish this task. Truly in accord with their Historical Ma- 
terialistic Philosophy, they attempted to find the connecting 
causes of these historical and social manifestations and upheavals 
in the existing class antagonisms, thereby stripping these events 
of their ideological cloak and exposing the class war in all its 
nakedness. Aside from distinctly German and in the broader 
aspect local subjects, Engels wrote a treatise on the Peasant War, 
and Marx contributed his masterly work, so well known to all 
Marxian students, "The Class- Struggles in France 1848-1850." 
This study found its continuation in the profound and brilliant 
essay entitled "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon," 



SECOND LECTURE 57 

published in 1852, and its completion in the Manifesto or Address 
of the Executive Committee of the International Workingmen's 
Association on the Paris Commune, and better known under the 
title of "The Civil War in France." 

However, the rejuvenated revolution which Marx and his 
associates so confidently looked forward to, was, as stated before, 
not to materialize. Subsequent economic and historical studies 
now showed Marx that the revolutionary year of 1848 had been 
but the legitimate child of the terrific industrial panic of 1847. 
And as prosperity gradually surged in upon the troubled sea of 
European social and political conditions, the revolutionary vital- 
ity born by industrial depression ebbed out. An economic era 
of expansion and plenty had set in, more so intensified by the 
discovery of gold in California. The anticipation of a rich har- 
vest of profits exterminated the last spark of rebellion in the 
bourgeoisie. As already dwelled upon above, henceforth the 
capitalist class was to be guided by only one precept in its politi- 
cal conduct, namely : to harmonize and compromise with feudality 
and absolutism, in order to jointly exploit the proletariat. The 
proletariat, however, was as yet weak in numbers, or, to be more 
exact, weak in organization, and practically entirely lacking in the 
conscious perception of its historic mission as a class. The col- 
lapse of Chartism in England, the June massacre in Paris, the 
fall of Vienna, the results of the revolutions and struggles in 
Germany, Hungary and Italy had so physically and morally 
weakened the workers that for the moment no revolutionary 
action was to be expected of them. However, the interminable 
circle of capitalist production, the anarchical features of this 
production, already foreshadowed the advance of another eco- 
nomic crisis: a crisis that was but the natural child of an eco- 
nomic system based upon the appropriation of surplus-value, and 
a crisis which in its multiplied form actually portended the in- 
evitable downfall of the capitalist system and the expropriation of 
the expropriators. These facts Marx conceived with the as yet 



58 KARL MARX : THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

relatively limited knowledge at his disposal. He also was aware 
that the workers were only powerful against the exploiters when 
organized upon class lines — a form and spirit of organization 
which presupposed class-consciousness. In order to awaken and 
generate this class-consciousness in the international proletariat, 
the individual worker had first to recognize his economic status, 
i. e., to conceive that he was but a commodity under capitalism. 
Animated, yes whipped on by the compelling command of the 
hour, Marx set to work to provide the intellectual weapons for 
the working class in its struggle for emancipation. 

III. 

Buried amongst the dusty tomes and intellectual treasures of 
the British Museum, years passed in which Marx once more de- 
voted himself exclusively to investigation and study. They were 
years of intellectual joys but material privations to Marx and his 
family. The press as well as the publishers in Germany had insti- 
tuted a tentative boycott against Marx, and this meant bitter 
poverty to him and his beloved ones. For example, his brilliant- 
essay "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon" had to be 
published in New York in a periodical issued by his friend 
Weydemeyer. Also the brochure dealing with the trial of some 
of Marx's comrades before the jury in Cologne and entitled 
"Enthiillungen iiber den Kolner Kommunistenprozess" ("Reve- 
lations on the Communists' Trial in Cologne") had to be pub- 
lished in America, 1852. During this year, Marx also accepted 
an offer of the "New York Tribune" to act as its London corre- 
spondent; he was expected to contribute an article every week, 
for which he received the flat rate of five dollars. This meagre 
but welcome income was practically for years the only regular 
source of revenue of the Marx family. In the "New York Trib- 
une" Marx published various reviews and criticisms of social and 
political conditions in Europe, and also a series of articles which 
afterwards appeared in pamphlet form under the name of "Revo- 



SECOND LECTURE 59 

lution and Counter-Revolution in Germany." This series of 
articles was up to a few years ago credited to Marx ; the publi- 
cation of the correspondence between Marx and Engels, how- 
ever, shows without a doubt that they were written by Engels. 
"Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany" is but a con- 
tinuation of the historical work commenced in "The Rhenish 
Review," and its purpose was to show the inner connection, or as 
Buckle is so fond of saying, "the logical connection," i. e., the 
historical mechanism of the struggles in the first half of the nine- 
teenth century. 

As you will recollect, in his studies, Marx had gone from 
philosophy to history, and from history to political economy. It 
is, therefore, quite logical to deduce that a close study of the po- 
litical class struggles, which since the seventeenth century had 
swept furiously over Europe as revolutions, brought him in con- 
tact with the power or driving forces behind and responsible for 
these upheavals. According to the Historical Materialism of 
Marx and Engels, in order to intelligently explain the social 
and political life of capitalist society, the economy or industrial 
structure of that society must be first investigated and 
its origin, motive forces, laws and course of development ex- 
plained. To this task Marx devoted himself during the years of 
his exile in London, an exile which lasted until his death, with 
en industry, enthusiasm and disinterestedness truly unparalleled 
in the history of modern science. As Klara Zetkin so symbol- 
ically states: "He devoted himself to this task with the bee-like 
industry and the patience of the scientist and the revolutionary 
fervour of the Socialist." The first fruits of his labor were con- 
tained in his "Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie" ("Contribu- 
tion to the Critique of Political Economy"), published in 1859, a 
book which was but a preliminary study of or an introduction to 
his greatest work "Das Kapital" ("Capital"). 

The first volume of "Capital" appeared in 1867. It would be 
the height of folly to even attempt to give a somewhat compre- 



60 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

hensive review of this monumental work in these lectures. I will, 
however, as a conclusion of this lecture, attempt to present to you 
a rough but in no form exhaustive resume of this masterwork, 
embracing the fundamental or quintessential principles upon 
which the theoretical structure of "Capital" is predicated, and 
which to-day are acclaimed as axiomatic truths of the Socialist 
philosophy. A knowledge of these philosophical and economic 
principles is absolutely indispensable and imperative to an intelli- 
gent understanding and appreciation of "Capital," and certainly a 
substantial aid in the studv of the work. In the last half of my 
next and last lecture, I will endeavor to present to you an outline 
of a reading and study course for the works of Marx, and let 
me emphasize here that a methodical and well-directed study of 
writings about and by Marx is also essential for a proper com- 
prehension of "Capital." 

To recapitulate part of my first Lecture, in "Capital" Marx, in 
his search for the basic and causal conditions underlying the 
production and exchange of wealth in capitalist society, con- 
tinued the labors started by the classics of bourgeois political 
economy, of whom Wm. Petty, Adam Smith and Ricardo are 
distinguished representatives, by dissecting the prevailing mode 
of production into its most elementary parts. He found that pri- 
vate property in the means of production is the cornerstone and 
historic peculiarity of capitalist society. With the aid of the 
Materialist Conception of History, he analyzed the social and 
historical position of the proletariat in society, and was able to 
formulate the principles and tactics for this class in its struggle 
against the bourgeoisie. By fixing the status of the worker in 
present society and also exposing the surplus-value 'creating 
faculties of his labor-power; by classifying the worker as a com- 
modity — a living commodity that produces more than it consumes 
— Marx laid bare the source and magnitude of capitalist exploi- 
tation, and the social and historical function and significance of 
capital. By thus uncovering the origin of capitalist society and 



SECOND LECTURE 61 

defining the nature of its economic laws; by pointing out and 
underscoring the transitoriness of and the ever changing forms in 
the structure of the mode of production, and the inevitable con- 
sequences of competition and surplus-value appropriation, he 
entered an indictment of fact against capitalist society and pro- 
claimed the ultimate collapse of this most "perfect" of all sys- 
tems. Marx significantly and with the aid of his dialectical 
method, a method which you will recollect he had taken over from 
Hegel, pointed out that a system which originally started with 
private individual property had rapidly developed into a system 
of private social property, and was bound — through the dynamic 
force of class-antagonisms — to culminate into a system of collec- 
tive social property. In other words, he was forced to conclude that 
the social character of production was bound to be supplemented 
by a social system of distribution, and this change was only pos- 
sible through the abolition of the cornerstone and bedrock of 
capitalist exploitation — private property in the means of produc- 
tion. The negation or antithesis of private property Marx found 
in social property or — Socialism; and the negation or contradic- 
tion of the class struggle he located in the abolition of all classes 
and class prerogatives based on any form of property. To illus- 
trate these philosophical deductions : Just as day implies the ap- 
proach of night, and life portends death; just as truth is born 
by the lie, and virtue is but the creature of sin ; just as morality is 
measured with the yardstick of immorality, and the law is but 
the product of an unlawful act; just as the city or town fore- 
shadowed the province, and the province the nation ; so the nation 
implies the inter-nation; capitalism finds its contradiction in So- 
calism; and private property, in its growing social aspects, must 
culminate into social property : thus ending the class struggle with 
the inauguration of a social peace based on economic equality. 
In the past the class struggle found its culmination in the victory 
and supremacy of various economic classes, however, these 
classes were always swept into power by virtue of certain eco- 
nomic might and holdings, and always asserted their victory to the 



62 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

detriment of a subject class. The victory of the proletariat is the 
first victory in which the vanquished class will at the same time 
become part of the victor class, because this victory is the last 
phase of the class struggle and announces the victory of society 
over class rule. Different from all previous struggles in the 
evolution of mankind, the battle of the proletariat is not a battle 
for proletarian supremacy over capitalist supremacy — a suprem- 
acy which is to be asserted at the expense and subjugation of an- 
other economic class; the victory of the proletariat does not 
imply the rule of the proletariat over a subject class, because the 
victory of the proletariat implies the emancipation of the lowest 
class in society, the abolition of all property prerogatives, and 
spells the victory, not of a class, but of society. 

With "Capital" Marx rendered an analysis of capitalist pro- 
duction unequalled in profundity and thoroughness by any pre- 
vious or subsequent economist. To the true scientist "Capital" 
very quickly came to be considered a treasure island of politi- 
cal economy; and to the working class it was and is to this day 
the intellectual compass, with which the capitalist mode of pro- 
duction through its unique exponent, Karl Marx, has equipped 
the proletariat in its fight for the liberation of society from class 
rule. 






THIRD LECTURE 



THIRD LECTURE 65 



Workingmen and Workingwomen : 

THE beginning of the last half of the nineteenth century wit- 
nessed in the principal European countries and also the 
United States an unparalleled growth and development in the 
capitalist system of production. It was the period in which the 
gigantic cotton industry in the North of England was unable to 
procure enough human flesh for absorption and transmutation into 
surplus value; it was the period in which the northern part of the 
Western Hemisphere was ravaged by a gigantic civil war, waged 
to decide the question whether the semi-feudal Southern aris- 
tocracy or the, comparatively speaking, progressive and impatient 
capitalist class of the industrial North should henceforth dictate 
the political policy and economic and social course of the Union ; 
it was the period in which the gradually awakening Muscovite 
Empire, through the at least nominal emancipation of the serfs, 
created its first large armies of modern industrial and agrarian 
proletarians, and thereby proclaimed to the world the definite 
collapse of feudalism and the ascendancy of capitalism in Russia ; 
it was the period in which the question of political and economic 
unity was becoming an ever greater problem and necessity to the 
general progress of the German States, and also the crying de- 
mand of the hour in torn and disunited Italy; in other words: 
it was the period in which the national units of capitalist produc- 
tion became conscious of their interests, and also began to look 
with envy upon the colonial possessions and the consequent 
imperialistic domination of England ; it was the beginning of the 
great battle of capitalist national units for international suprem- 
acy — a struggle whose culmination is vividly illustrated by the 
present Great War. In the sixties and seventies of the last cen- 
tury, of course, the indications for a large era of imperialism 
were as yet only mildly perceivable. As stated before, countries 
like Germany, the United States and France were still occupied 



66 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

with the development, organization and exploitation of their 
national resources or the reformation of their political institu- 
tions, in other words : the modern capitalist mode of production 
was still in its infancy — in its embryonic state. 

However, one historic fact loomed forth portentously in all 
these countries, namely : that in proportion as the capitalist mode 
of production slowly.cast off its swaddling clothes and grew into 
a vigorous specimen, so the class-consciousness of the exploited 
masses showed signs of awakening and development. Indications 
cf a growing unrest amongst the workers were visible every- 
where. In England the remnants of the Chartist organization 
were ably assisting in the building up of the trades-unions ; fac- 
tory legislation, regulating the hours of employment and particu- 
larly child labor, was the first direct product of this agitation 
and growing consciousness. In Germany Ferdinand Lassalle was 
sounding the tocsin of proletarian action along class lines ; and in 
France the activity of the workers' organizations, particularly in 
Paris, Lyons and other industrial centers, clearly betrayed an 
ever growing spirit of working-class solidarity. 

This growing solidarity amongst the workers was stimulated 
and urged on to a more concrete manifestation, through the 
growing friendship and fraternal relations between the capitalists 
of various countries, an illustration of which was given at the 
second Universal Exhibition, held in London in 1862. This 
exhibition brought together a large number of business men and 
manufacturers from every nook and corner of the globe. And 
here, at receptions and banquets, the acquaintances were de- 
veloped and the relations between the exploiters of the world 
solidified to such an extent that the exhibition became to be 
known amongst workingmen as the "International of the bour- 
geoisie." The supplement to this "International" was born, 
when on September 28th, 1864, workers' representatives from 
England, France, Germany, Poland and Italy gathered in St. 
Martin's Hall, London, and upon the proposal of the French 



THIRD LECTURE 67 

delegate, M. Le Lubez, organized the proletarian expression of 
international solidarity under the name of the International 
Workingmen's Association — the first International. 

Karl Marx actively participated in the preliminary work 
necessary for the calling of the conference. As the correspond- 
ing secretary for Germany, he was at the same time a member of 
the committee elected to draw up the constitution, programme or 
platform, etc., also to which the temporary management of the 
young organization's affairs was entrusted. Needless to say, the 
drafting of the association's declaration of principles and con- 
stitution was quite a delicate and complicated matter, and neces- 
sitated a thorough knowledge of working-class conditions in the 
different European countries. Furthermore, at that early state 
of capitalist development, relatively speaking of course, the pro- 
gramme of the International Workingmen's Association had to 
be formulated in such a manner as not to collide or be of 
hindrance to the different countries in their various stages of 
capitalist evolution. Under such manifold social and political 
conditions and at this particular period of capitalist development, 
the functions of the International could be at best only such of an 
advisory and educational capacity, and their effect in the main of 
a moral character. The International was to be a permanent or 
standing manifestation of the international solidarity of the 
proletariat, and its offices were to be employed to encourage, de- 
velop and cement these relations amongst the workers in the 
different countries wherever possible. Marx knew that only an 
internationally organized and class-conscious proletariat could 
hope to cope with and defeat the capitalist class and destroy the 
capitalist mode of production — an international institution; he 
also knew that organization and education of the workers would 
have to go hand in hand with the development of capitalism, if 
the workers were to achieve their end; he knew that no eco- 
nomic system ever disappeared or was relieved by another system 
until it had developed all faculties inherent in it ; he, therefore, 



6$ KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

knew that tedious pioneer work would have to be done and that 
the social revolution was not to be accomplished via the route of 
conspiracy, spontaneous direct action of self-styled "minorities," 
assassination and bombastic phrase-mongery. Around what pro- 
grammatic standard was the international proletariat to marshal 
its forces? 

It was Marx who drafted both the constitution and the pro- 
gramme of the International Workingmen's Association, docu- 
ments which were unanimously adopted by the organization. In 
the declaration of principles, better known as the "Inaugural 
Address," Marx outlined a plan of immediate action for the 
proletariat. This activity formed but "a part," to speak in the 
words of the "Address," "of the general struggle for emanci- 
pation of the toiling classes." The "Inaugural Address" was a 
child of the "Communist Manifesto." It also called attention to 
<?i?d emphasized the ever growing wealth in the hands of the 
possessing minority in society, and contrasts this with the ever 
increasing numbers in the propertyless working class and the 
increasing misery of this class, underscoring sharply the class 
antagonism between the exploiters and the exploited — an antag- 
onism which is but the reflex of the economic divisions in capi- 
talist society, divisions that are the original source of the social 
unrest. The "Inaugural Address" calls upon the workers to rise 
against misery and exploitation and advises them — fully ap- 
preciating the significance of the legal ten-hour day in England — 
to conduct this struggle via the road of independent political 
action and constructive, i. e., protective factory legislation; this 
activity was to be engaged in, however, always with the ultimate 
aim in view to conquer the political power for the proletariat in 
order to use the political machinery of the capitalist state to de- 
stroy forever all class rule. The document lays special weight 
upon the necessity of international working-class solidarity, a 
solidarity out of which an important duty arises, namely : to care- 
fully control the foreign politics of the various capitalist govern- 



THIRD LECTURE 69 

ments, and to protest most emphatically and use all the might 
at the workers' command, should these politics pursue criminal 
aims, consciously exploit national prejudices and tend to squan- 
der the blood and possessions of the people in wars of conquest. 
When we read this passage in the light of the present war, then 
we can about perceive the significance of the warning: a warn- 
ing which was, however, not heeded because the nationalism 
generated by the material conditions at the bottom of modern 
imperialism — understand full-fledged national capitalism — was 
able to even permeate the working-class movement, becoming for 
the time predominant in influence, even making international 
solidarity, ergo the class interests of the proletariat, subservient 
to its aim. 

However, I am disgressing from the subject proper. The 
principles and tactical suggestions just presented to you can be 
considered the basic aspirations and the ultimate and immediate 
aims of the first International at its inception. As the years of 
experience and constant struggle swept over this yet crude and 
immature class organization of the international proletariat, the 
clear-headed thinkers at its head were compelled to admit that 
the battle of the workers for emancipation was indeed an arduous 
struggle : a struggle which was inseparably interwoven with the 
development and perfection of the very system they, the prole- 
tarians, were destined to destroy. In the organization and grow- 
ing class-consciousness of the proletariat is reflexed the organi- 
zation and growing power of the capitalist system of production ; 
the growth of one social layer compels the growth of the other, 
and just as intensive life foreshadows an early death, so does 
this social antithesis portend its culmination in the social revo- 
lution. 

The process of economic evolution, with its accompanying 
class manifestations, is, however, as stated before, a tediously 
slow one. To the individual, conscious of his economic status 
and aware of the historic role the proletariat is to play in the 



70 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

* 

future, social development seems stagnant and society intellec- 
tually corrupted or fossilized — dormant. To him the revolution 
is a mental reality, and could become a material one, if, yes, if 
the workers would only see the light and become class-conscious, 
i. e., would only become Socialists. The individual who reasons 
in this fashion, and who by the way is by no means a rarity in 
the movement of to-day, is everything but a Socialist in the His- 
torical Materialistic, that is scientific conception of the term. 
He is a soaring idealist, who has lost the firm foundation of 
historical reality and material possibility from under his feet, and 
v/ho is, consequently, utopistic in his deductions, actions and 
tactics. The first International, as is also the Socialist movement 
of to-day, was abundantly blessed with a large number of these 
undoubtedly sincere but intellectually ill-balanced comrades. Karl 
Marx and his followers, perceiving capitalist society through the 
spectacles of dialectical evolution and Historical Materialism, 
and seeing in all its manifestations but the logical sign of social 
development, were bound to collide with the gasconading idealist, 
who contemplated revolutionizing society via the road of back- 
room conspiracies and armed uprisings, especially at a time when 
sporadic prosperity had momentarily blinded the average wage 
slave to his actual conditions. 

This struggle between Historical Materialism and Utopian 
Idealism has been largely recorded by Socialist historians as a 
personal struggle between Marx and Bakunin for leadership in 
the International. Such writers are also everything else but 
Socialist historians, because if their conception were true, then 
the ghosts of Marx and Bakunin are at this advanced day still 
seeking to settle their personal quarrel in the Socialist and radi- 
cal movement of every modern country on the face of the globe. 
The struggle between Historical Materialism, ergo scientific So- 
cialism, and Utopian Idealism — whether disguised as Opportun- 
ism, Impossibilism, Anarchist-Communism, etc., matters not — 
first took on shape and form in the first International and was led 



THIRD LECTURE 71 

by Karl Marx and Michael Bakunin, respectively. It is not to 
be confused with the intellectual battle and polemics between 
scientific Socialism and the Utopianism of the French and Eng- 
lish schools. As stated before, the intellectual struggle between 
these two conceptions is still going on in the movement, and will 
continue to go on until Historical Materialism or the Materialist 
Conception of History becomes the predominating conception in 
society — philosophically as well as socially: an intellectual revo- 
lution which we are rapidly approaching and which has its roots 
in the material conditions of capitalist production. The present 
world-war, I believe, has been a wonderful schoolmaster in this 
direction. Never were the interests, class aspirations and eco- 
nomic forces of the ruling classes and their pliable governments 
more openly exposed, and never have I read and perceived more 
articles and books, dealing with the economic and social aspects 
of the war, written and published by bourgeois members of so- 
ciety than since the outbreak of the war. Of course, in the So- 
cialist movement the war has been also a great incentive to study 
and particularly to delve into the "mysteries" of the foundation 
of Scientific Socialism — the Materialist Conception of History. 

To return to the subject. It cannot be denied, however, that 
the struggle between Historical Materialism and Utopian Ideal- 
ism, as personified in Karl Marx and Michael Bakunin, tended 
gradually to disrupt the already loose form of the International's 
organization. This falling apart, however, carried within its 
womb the germs of consolidation and organization along national 
lines. And it is peculiar how the subsequent course of events 
furnished additional proof of the soundness of the Marxian 
method of historical analysis; for is it not indeed a striking co- 
incidence only explainable with the aid of the Marxian key, when 
we perceive that in all countries with a prominent capitalist 
physiognomy, Marxism exercised full control in the organization, 
and in the Latin and chiefly agrarian countries Bakunism side by 
side with Marxism could be observed. 



72 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

Then also capitalism was at this period commencing to carve 
out its national destiny in countries like Germany, France, Italy, 
the United States, etc., and in this process a series of so-called 
national problems was raised : problems, however, that had a 
disruptive influence and a disintegrating effect upon the Inter- 
national. In this connection I desire to cite the Franco-Prussian 
War which had resulted in the unification of the various German 
states and the organization of a powerful capitalist class in Ger- 
many. The reaction of the German conquests and annexation 
of Alsace-Lorraine, and the beastly crushing of the Paris Com- 
mune with the aid of Bismarck, had inflamed and aroused the 
national pride of the French people, and conjured the spectre of 
"revenge" upon the scene. England's undisturbed conquest of the 
world's markets, a conquest securely cemented by ] icrative co- 
lonial possessions, had brought an era of prosperity to the British 
workers, of course relatively speaking; and the plan of the British 
imperialists to create a so-called world-empire, of course under 
the protectorate of Great Britain, a plan that was skilfully advo- 
cated by Lord Beaconsfield and that actually turned the heads of 
quite a few prominent men in the English labor movement, 
amongst them Joseph Cowen, who had been a strong supporter 
of the International, created such a spirit of jingoism in England 
and was productive of a national arrogance, which at this late day 
only finds its parallel in certain types of German workers. 

These were the conditions and motives which prompted the 
Congress of the International at the Hague, in 1872, to transfer 
the seat of the organization's General Council to New York: a 
decision that in reality and practical effect actually implied the 
disbandment and the end of the International Workingmen's 
Association. 

As a member of the General Council, Marx remained true to 
the International to the end. And to him the dissolution of this 
much-dreaded body implied only the reorganization of the prole- 
tarian forces on a larger and more class-conscious scale. The 



THIRD LECTURE 73 

"Inaugural Address" and "The Civil War in France" are two 
historic publications and documents of the International Work- 
ingmen's Association of which he is the author, and which are 
remarkable sign-posts of the proletariat's march to emancipation. 
They are truly fitting supplements to the "Communist Mani- 
festo." However, no one will ever know the volume of work per- 
formed by Marx as the so-called intellectual head of the Inter- 
national. Only a small portion of this activity is available in 
documents. As a leader, educator and counsellor of leaders, he 
performed invaluable services, not only while member of the 
General Council, but up to his death. To one unfamiliar with the 
conditions, the turbulent and primitive conditions that existed in 
the early days of the modern labor movement, no adequate con- 
ception of the colossal magnitude of this task can present itself. 
However, it is no exaggeration when I state, and my assertion is 
based upon the reports of men who for years lived in intimate 
association with Marx, that it was primarily this daily slew of 
details, which steadily kept pouring in upon him from every nook 
and corner of the globe and demanded his time and attention, 
that prevented him from devoting his undivided energies to the 
far more important scientific studies. Marx was a most con- 
scientious student and advisor, and could devote days to research, 
in order to furnish an authentic reply to an inquiry. Aside from 
the historic causes cited above, here we have a tributary cause 
responsible for Marx's retirement from leadership in the Inter- 
national — a retirement that fell together with the disintegration 
of the organization. In just this energy-absorbing phase of 
Marx's activity we can also locate the reason why on the day of 
his death, March 14th, 1883, the second volume of "Capital" was 
still uncompleted, and the material for the third volume had been 
only collected and f ragmentally suggested or roughly sketched in 
his note book. However, to again quote Klara Zetkin : "The 
principal work of Marx is comparable to a grand torso of antique 
art, which even in its mutilated form speaks more impressively 



74 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

and enchantingly to our soul than dozens of completed 
sculptures." 

This presentation of the life and works of Marx would, 
however, be seriously defective, if no account of Marx's more 
intimate domestic life would be rendered, i. e., if that phase of life 
would be omitted which is really the basic element of all social 
activity — the every-day life. In order to do this intelligently, an 
understanding of the material conditions or social atmosphere in 
which he lived and of the characteristics of Marx and his in- 
separable companions is necessary. 

Marx may truly and without indulging in platitudinous ex- 
aggerations be celebrated as an ideal type of revolutionist. He 
was, it is true, primarily a scientist; a scientist, however, who 
after having reached a definite deduction demanding a certain 
form of action did not shrink from the duty imposed upon him 
by scientific investigation and social circumstances, but cheerfully 
shouldered the task and unflinchingly labored to realize the de- 
mands of social evolution. Karl Marx was a true scientist, who 
did not consider himself a neutral and independent atom of the 
social organism — an atom that could function without affecting 
other atoms — but a scientist who through the result of his scien- 
tific findings felt himself morally compelled to participate in the 
reconstruction of society, who became a revolutionist, because he 
wanted to be and remain a true scientist. In Marx, therefore, 
the scientific world finds a man, who through his keen analysis 
and comprehension of social phenomena dedicated his faculties 
to the cause of the disinherited working-class ; because, unlike 
so many of his contemporaries, he saw in that class the pioneer 
of all real progress, and also because to him the social interest 
was of far greater importance than his own material welfare. 
He was a consistent revolutionist, because he sought to be and 
remain a consistent scientist. Here we have a gratifying ex- 
ample where theory is supplemented by corresponding action: 
where a man's conduct squares with his principles. To Marx, 



THIRD LECTURE 75 

scientific conviction and unhampered investigation were every- 
thing, and with sovereign scorn did he look down upon and treat 
that so numerous tribe of professorial scribes, who sell these in- 
dispensable prerequisites of liberty for the proverbial mess of 
pottage. And just because Marx was a searching scientist and 
his scientific findings made out of him a revolutionist, that is why 
he was ostracized by the class which to-day, by virtue of its eco- 
nomic power, is in control of the institutions of learning: that 
is why Marx was condemned to battle with the most dire poverty 
during the greatest part of his life. 

To Marx, however, poverty was an incident of secondary 
importance and considered the legitimate product of a social 
manifestation of prime significance to him, and that was the 
movement — his ideal. Marx, like all great men of letters or 
geniuses, was a poor business man and an absolute failure as an 
administrator of the practical things in every-day life. To him 
life seemed to be a medium for the realization of certain aims 
and the promotion of the social welfare, and not an occasion for 
the talking of shop, the gratification of petty personal desires and 
the amassing of wealth, etc. 

From the beginning of his exile in London and practically 
up to his death Marx and his family bore a burden of poverty far 
heavier and more unbearable than the one carried by the average 
proletarian family in those days. There were days in the Marx 
household when the stove was cold, the frost biting, the pantry 
empty and hunger upon the bill of fare ; when the impatient land- 
lord stormed and threatened, and the children's starved faces 
and beseeching glances seemed to accusingly form themselves 
into a veritable indictment against their father. These ungrati- 
fying, yes, most miserable of miserable conditions pained Marx 
severely. Not because he feared or cared for material suffer- 
ings; no, Marx passed such vicissitudes of every-day life over 
with truly noble unconcern. What, however, affected and 
pained him so deeply was to see his wife, this faithful companion 



76 KARL MARX: THE MAX AXD HIS WORK 

of his joyous boyhood days, and his beloved little ones suffer. 
Marx worshipped his wife and adored his children with a love 
and adoration that knew no bounds. And. therefore, when two 
of his daughters and his only son. his little Moosh, succumbed to 
this pitiful and devitalizing poverty, were, so to speak, sacrificed 
upon the altar of incorruptible and path-breaking science and to 
the cause of proletarian and social emancipation, his grief was 
uncontrollable and laid the foundation for his early and untimely 
death. From the death of his son, a child who bore the physical 
curse of poverty from the day of his birth until his death, he 
never recovered. In order that I may not awaken the feeling of 
doubt in my auditors or be charged with exaggeration, permit me 
herewith to quote a letter of Mrs. Marx to Mrs. Weydemeyer, the 
wife of an intimate friend of Marx residing in New York : 

''My dear Mrs. Weydemeyer: 

"In answer to your kind letter, which I received this morning, and in 
order to show you how delighted I was to receive it, I will write you a de- 
tailed letter at once, for now I see from your writing that you would like 
to hear from us, and that you have still preserved the same feelings of 
friendship as we have done. 

"For how would it be possible for such old and tried comrades and 
friends, to whom Fate has given the same sufferings, the same pleasures, 
the same happy and sad days, ever to become strangers, though time and 
the ocean intervene? And so I extend my hand to you, as to a brave, 
true companion in adversity, a fellow struggler and sufferer. Yes, indeed, 
my dear Mrs. Weydemeyer, our hearts have often been filled with sorrow 
and gloom, and I can well imagine what you have had to contend with, 
again lately! I fully realize all you have to contend with, the cares and 
deprivations, for have I not often suffered the same! But suffering hard- 
ships and love gives strength. 

"The first years of our life here were bitter ones, but I will not dwell 
on those sad memories to-day, on the losses we suffered, nor the dear, 
sweet departed children, whose pictures are engraved in our hearts with 
such deep sorrow. 

"I will write of a newer period of our life rather, which, despite 
much sadness, has nevertheless, brought us many bright gleams of 
happiness. 



THIRD LECTURE 77 

"In 1856 I travelled to Trier with mv three remaining daughters. My 
dear mother was overjoyed at our arrival, but, unfortunately, the joy 
was doomed to be of short duration. The most faithful, the best of 
mothers became ill and, after suffering for eleven days, closed her dear, 
tired eyes, her last glance resting fondly upon the children and me. Your 
dear husband, who knew what a loving mother she was, can best estimate 
my grief. We laid the dearly beloved body in its last resting place, and 
left Trier, after having settled the little legacy of my dear mother, divid- 
ing this equally between my brother Edgar and myself. 

'Up to this time we had lived, in London, in two miserable rooms. 
We were now enabled, by means of the few hundred thalers my dear 
mother had left me, despite all the sacrifices she had made for us, to fur- 
nish a little house for ourselves, not far from the beautiful Hampstead 
Heath, and which we are still occupying, f As the translator of the 
"Woman in White," you will probably recall this name.) 

"It is, truly, a princely dwelling, compared with our former narrow 
holes, and although the furnishing of the whole house cost us but forty 
pounds ('second-hand rubbish' playing the leading role) we felt quite 
'high-tonecl,' possessing, as we did, a parlour. All the linen and other 
remnants of former greatness were now redeemed from the hands of the 
Uncle/ and it was a joy to me to be able to count my damask napkins of 
old Scotch origin once more. This grandeur, however, was of short dura- 
tion, for soon afterward, one piece after the other had to wander back to 
the "Pop House" (as the children call the mysterious Three-Balls shop). 
Yet it gave us great pleasure to live once more in comparative comfort 
and ease. 

"Then the first American crisis came and our income was cut in half. 
Our living expenses had to be screwed down once more, and we even had 
to incur debts. These had to be incurred in order to be able to continue 
the education of our girls further as begun. 

"And now I come to the brightest part of our life, from which the 
only light and happiness was shed on our existence — our dear children. 
I feel certain that your husband, who was so fond of the girls when they 
were children, would be more heartily pleased with them now since they 
have grown into tall and blooming young women. 

'Although I must fear that you will take me for a rather conceited 
and weak mother, I will give you a description of these dear praise- 
worthy girls. They are both exceptionally good-hearted, of generous 
dispositions, of truly amiable modesty and girlish purity. Jenny will be 
seventeen years of age on the first of May. She is a most charming girl, 



78 KARL MARX : THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

making quite a handsome appearance with her dark, shining, black hair 
and equally dark, shining soft eyes and her brunette, Creole complexion 
with its acquired healthy English tints. The pleasant, good-natured ex- 
pression of her round, childlike face makes one forget that she has a stub 
nose, which is perhaps not beautiful in itself, and it is a real pleasure 
when she speaks, to observe the friendly mouth with its fine teeth. 

"Laura, who was fifteen years old last September, is perhaps prettier 
and of more regular features than her older sister, whose direct opposite 
she is. Although she is just as tall as Jenny, as slender and delicately 
formed, there is something lighter, brighter and more lucid about her. 
The upper part of her face may well be called beautiful with its waves 
of curly hair of chestnut brown, her sweet, dear eyes of changeable 
greenish lights that burn like triumphal fires, and her finely formed and 
noble forehead. The lower part of her face is less regular, being less de- 
veloped. Both girls possess ros}', blooming complexions, and I often 
marvel at their lack of vanity, for I remember very well that the same 
could not have been said of their mother at a certain tender age ! 

"At school they have always carried off the first prizes. They are per- 
fectly at home in English and are quite advanced in French. They are able 
to read Dante in Italian and also know a little Spanish ; the German 
language seems to give them the greatest trouble; although I take every 
means in my power to prevail on them to take a German lesson now and 
then, my wishes do not always find obedience, so you see that respect for 
me and my authority are not very great. Jenny's special talent is for 
drawing, and the best ornaments in our home are her crayon drawings. 
Laura was so negligent about drawing that we had to deprive her of this 
instruction, as a punishment. She delights in practising on the piano, 
however, and sings charming English and German duets with her sister. 
Unfortunately, they commenced taking their musical instruction rather 
late, having begun only a year and a half ago. It had been impossible for 
us to raise the money for these expenses, for we had no piano. The one 
which we have now is only a hired one, and is old and dilapidated. 

"The girls, are a constant pleasure to us, owing to their affectionate 
and unselfish dispositions. Their little sister, however, is the idol of the 
whole house. 

"This child was born at the time our poor, dear Edgar departed from 
life, and all our love for the little brother, all the tenderness for him, were 
now showered on the little sister, whom the older girls cherish with 
motherly solicitude. But you could scarcely find a lovelier child, so 
pretty, naive and full of droll humour is she. Her charming manner of 



THIRD LECTURE 79 

speaking and relating stones is truly remarkable. This she learned from 
the Grimm brothers, who are her companions by day and night. We all 
have read the fairy tales until we are almost blind, but woe to us if we 
were to forget one syllable of Rumpelstilzkin or Schneewittchen ! By means 
of fairy stories, she has been able to learn the German language, which 
she speaks correctly besides the English language, which of course lies 
in the air. This little one is Karl's favourite pet, laughing and chatting 
away many of his troubles. 

"I am happy in still having our dear, loyal, conscientious Lenchen to 
assist me in housekeeping; ask your dear husband about her, he will affirm 
what a treasure she is to us. For sixteen years she has faithfully stood 
by us through storm and adversity. 

"Last year we had to suffer great annoyance from the infamous and 
vile attacks made by the whole German, American, etc., press. You have 
no idea how many sleepless nights and how much worry it all cost us. 
Our lawsuit against the National-Zeitung cost us a large sum of money, 
and when Karl had his book ready, he could find no publisher who would 
accept it. He finally had to have it published at his own expense (pay- 
ing 25 pounds) and now after its appearance, the cowardly, corrupt press 
is trying to kill it by silence. I am delighted that you are pleased with 
the book. Your opinion is almost literally identical with that of all our 
other friends. Through the very intentional disregard of the book by 
the press, it could not reach the splendid sale which we had every right to 
expect. 

'Meanwhile, the high approbation of all those of foremost intellectual 
standing must satisfy us. Our adversaries and enemies even have had to 
acknowledge its high value. Bucher described it as a compendium of the 
history of ages, and Lassalle writes that the enjoyment afforded him and 
his friends by this work of art was indescribable, and that their rejoicing 
and delight at so much wit was limitless. Engels considers this to be 
Karl's best book, as does 'Lupus.' Congratulations arrive from all sides, 
even our old enemy, Ruge, calls it a good farce. I am curious to see if 
America will observe the same silence. This would be actually revolting, 
after having given space to all those worthless lies and calumnies. Per- 
haps your dear husband could give some assistance in spreading its 
circulation. 

"I had scarcely finished copying the manuscript, when I suddenly 
fell ill. A most terrible fever attacked me, and we had to send for a 
doctor. On the 20th of November he came, examined me carefully, and 
after keeping silent a long time broke out into the words : "My dear Mrs. 



80 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

Marx, I am sorry to say you have got the smallpox — the children must 
leave the house immediately." You can imagine the distress and grief 
of the entire household at this verdict. What was to be done? The Lieb- 
knechts fearlessly offered to shelter the girls in their home, and by noon 
they had entered into exile, carrying their few belongings with them. 

"I kept growing worse, hour after hour, the smallpox breaking out 
in the worst form. I suffered very, very much. Awful, burning pains in 
my face, complete sleepnessness, in deadly fear for Karl, who nursed me 
with the greatest tenderness, finally the loss of all senses save the inner 
sense of consciousness, which remained clear. I lay abed by the open 
window, so that the cold November air blew in upon me. At the same 
time there was a red hot fire in the stove; ice was placed upon my burn- 
ing lips, and from time to time Bordeaux wine was infused in small 
quantities. I could hardly swallow, my hearing kept growing weaker, at 
last the eyes closed completely — who could tell if I should ever be able to 
see the light of day again? 

"But my constitution was victorious, the tenderest, most faithful 
nursing assisted — and so I am sitting here again in complete health, but 
with disfigured face, marked by scars and a dark red coloring — quite a la 
hauteur de la mode couleur de Magenta! Christmas eve came and for the 
first time since my illness the poor children were allowed to return to 
their sadly missed home. This first meeting was indescribably pathetic. 
The girls were deeply affected and could hardly repress their tears when 
they saw me. But five weeks previous I had made quite an acceptable 
appearance beside my blooming daughters. Due to the surprising fact 
that I still had no gray hair and possessed good teeth and figure, I be- 
longed to the class of well-preserved women — but now all this was gone! 
I felt as though I were a hippopotamus, belonging, rather to the Zoologi- 
cal Garden than to the Caucasian race. But do not let me frighten you 
too much. My appearance has improved quite a little, and the scars are 
beginning to heal. 

"I had scarcely recovered sufficiently to be able to leave my bed, when 
my dearly beloved Karl took sick. Excessive fear, anxiety and vexations 
of every sort and description threw him upon his sick bed. For the first 
time, his chronic liver trouble had become acute. But thank heavens, he 
recovered after an illness of four weeks. In the meantime, the Tribune 
had placed us at half-pay again and, instead of getting some receipts from 
the book, we were obliged to meet a note. Added to this was the enor- 
mous expense of the most terrible of sicknesses. In short, you now have 
an idea how we fared last winter. 



THIRD LECTURE 81 

"As a result of all these affairs, Karl resolved to make a plundering 
expedition to Holland, the land of tobacco and cheese. He will endeavour 
to induce his uncle to help him out with money. So I am a grass widow 
at the present moment, and in high hope that the great Holland under- 
taking will be successful. Saturday of last week I received the first letter, 
which contained hopeful expressions and sixty gulden. Naturally, such 
a mission is not easily fulfilled; it takes time; one must be expedient, use 
diplomacy and be a good manager. I am in hopes, however, that Karl 
will drain Holland dry and leave the country poverty-stricken. 

'*As soon as he has attained success in Holland, he will undertake a 
secret trip to Berlin, in order to reconnoitre the conditions there with the 
possible plan of arranging for a weekly or monthly periodical. The 
latest experiences have convinced us only too well that no progress is 
possible without our own organ. If Karl's plan to create a new party 
paper succeeds, he will certainly write to your husband and call upon 
him for reports from America. 

"Soon after Karl's departure, our faithful Lenchen took sick and to- 
day she is still abed, though on the road to recovery. For this reason I 
have my hands full of work, and have had to write this letter in the 
greatest of hurry. But I could not and would not remain silent any 
longer; it has been a great relief to me to unload my heart to my oldest, 
truest friends. I will not make any excuses to you for having written in 
detail of everything and everyone. My pen ran away with me, and I can 
only hope and wish that you may experience only a little of the pleasure 
I felt at reading your letter. I have already attended to the note and all 
is quite in order, just as though my lord and master were here. 

"My girls send their heartiest greetings and kisses to your dear chil- 
dren — one Laura greets the other — and I kiss each one of them in spirit. 
To you, my dear friend, I send my warmest regards. May you remain 
brave, and unshaken in these days of trial. The world belongs to the 
courageous. Continue to be the strong, faithful support of your dear 
husband and remain elastic in mind and body, the true 'unrespected' com- 
rade of your dear children, and let me hear from you again at your first 
opportunity. Yours in sincere .friendship, 

"Jenny Marx." 

In the face of such cold, cruel and inhuman facts, in the 
presence of such unbearable misery, comment and critical ap- 
preciation become paralyzed : appalled by the shock inherent in 
this tragic revelation of a page in a man's life, who is to-day 



82 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

acclaimed and idolized as the formulator of a philosophical sys- 
tem for the proper conception of historical phenomena, and a 
pathfinder, if not the head, of modern Political Economy— who is 
considered the founder of a movement whose membership now 
runs into millions and which exercises a potential influence in 
every civilized country on the face of the globe ! Any additional 
comment, in the face of such boundless and beautiful idealism 
and august devotion, seems sacrilegious and would only mar the 
profound impression created by this unpretentious narration of a 
phase in the life of this truly great and noble man. In conclusion 
I take the liberty to cite that well-known passage, a passage 
which is also quoted by Marx's daughter in closing her comment 
upon the turbulent life of her father : 

"the elements 
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up 
And say to all the world : This was a man'." 

The next article in this series will be an essay on "An Outline 
for the Study of Marxism." 



AN OUTLINE FOR THE STUDY 
OF MARXISM 



i! 



AN OUTLINE FOR THE STUDY OF MARXISM 



AS a fitting supplement to the lectures published under this 
title in the first three numbers of this magazine, I will now 
endeavor to furnish the reader with a compilation of works 
which I deem absolutely essential for a serious and compre- 
hensive study of Socialism. In the humble opinion of the writer, 
such a study must inevitably lead to a scientific understanding 
of Marxism — an understanding quite imperative to an intelligent 
and sound appreciation of Capitalism. 

There is probably no social theory outside of the various 
religious conceptions, and no book except the Bible that can boast 
of more adherents and advocates the world over than Socialism 
and "Capital." Socialism is to-day a factor in the social and 
political life of every nation, and the theoretical propositions and 
basic principles of Marxism are at this turbulent period the re- 
volutionary force and intellectual standard around which the 
workers and all truly disinterested students of Sociology and 
Political Economy rally in their struggle against the debasing 
influences of the mercenary Social Sciences. Marxism can, 
therefore, and without indulging in exaggeration, lay claim to the 
legacy of Classical Political Economy, and consider itself the 
only legitimate heir to the scientific values of this science. And 
acting in accord with this dictate of social development, Marx 
has raised upon the solid foundation laid by a Petty, Smith, 
Ricardo and Mills a structure truly massive, colossal and inspir- 
ing in its mighty grandeur, and overpoweringly convincing, yes 
unassailable and irrefutable in the scientific profundity of its 
construction. 

As has been amply elucidated and sufficiently explained, the 
two propositions upon which the theoretical system of Marx rests 
and whose proper appreciation is absolutely necessary for a 



86 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

thorough and rational understanding of Marxism are the Mate- 
rialist Conception of History and the Socialist critique and 
analysis of capitalist production, or Capitalism. I have dwelt at 
length upon these two fundamental phases of Socialist letters in 
my lectures, and, therefore, do not consider it essential to enter 
upon a discussion of them here, or to even emphasize the im- 
portance of their proper study and assimilation. 

Every scientist will concede that the basis for a competent 
understanding of or mastery over any branch of learning rests 
solely in systematic study and the well organized classification 
and application of the knowledge or subject matter absorbed. 
Socialism is no exception to the rule. For a thorough know- 
ledge of the elements of Socialist Philosophy and Economics a 
well planned and systematically executed course of critical read- 
ing and diligent study is absolutely essential. Such a course of 
reading and study is, however, taking the present conditions in 
the field of Socialist literature as a criterion, not so easily com- 
piled; especially, if the prospective student attempts to perform 
this task himself, i. e., without procuring the advice or counsel of 
a competent authority. In no field of intellectual endeavor or 
pursuit, in no science are there more snares, snags and traps 
awaiting the unwary and trusting student than in the field of 
theoretical Socialism. And when we view the innumerable col- 
lections of irresponsible, defective, yes in many cases fundament- 
ally erroneous works which are daily offered to the public as 
"recognized textbooks" on Socialism, then we can easily account 
for this ungratifying situation and also readily explain the 
Babylonian confusion and criminal inconsistency at times 
rampant in the Socialist movement. Furthermore, when per- 
ceiving that such "textbooks," which in the most cases are at 
best only unquestionable testimonials of their author's ignorance 
of Socialism, are circulated by responsible agencies in the 
Socialist Party, then the unbiased Socialist, to whom clarity in 
Socialist letters is more than a cherished aspiration, must confess 



OUTLINE FOR STUDY OF MARXISM 87 

that it certainly is not such a simple task after all for the un- 
initiated seeker to arrive at a clear and scientific conception of 
Marxism. 

I believe I am not exaggerating when I state that no move- 
ment has placed its founder upon a higher pedestal, or paid a 
greater tribute to its master than the Socialist movement. If 
anyone desires to view an example of deep gratitude and noble 
affection let him study the whole-hearted idolization of Karl Marx 
indulged in by the proletariat the world over. There is no civil- 
ized country upon the globe in which there are not hundreds of 
thousands of workingmen who proclaim themselves adherents to 
Marx's teachings. The picture of this great thinker adorns the 
parlor of every Socialist home, and can be found in every 
Socialist or trades-union hall. His masterpiece and textbook of 
scientific Socialism, "Capital," enjoys the undivided admiration 
of all Socialists. Be they orthodox revolutionists or plastic oppor- 
tunists matters not, in the laudation of Marx and his works they 
are one and claim to be — Marxists. Another peculiarity, which 
has its origin in the object to exploit the international reputation 
of Marx for political purposes, is the persistency of Socialist 
organizations or factions with the most conflicting principles to 
proclaim their position to be in conformity with Marxian pre- 
cepts, or to be the only "true" Marxian position. Consequently, 
since the death of Marx, the most farcical and disgusting political 
campaigns and pillaging expeditions have been labelled or mas- 
queraded in the guise of Marxism, and are even at this late day 
usurping the name of the great master for the purpose of political 
capital. These unsavory tactics and ungratifying conditions are 
made possible and tolerated in the Socialist movement, because 
the reverence entertained for and unbounded confidence placed in 
Marx are not predicated upon a sound knowledge of or an even 
superficial familiarity with the actual works of this celebrated 
economist. There is probably no book in the scientific literature 
of the world that enjoys greater popularity, is more appealed to, 



88 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

oftener recommended and less read than "Capital." In conse- 
quence, it will be difficult to find another science, enjoying the 
same popularity as Marxism, in whose name are propagated so 
many conflicting and erroneous views. As already insinuated, 
the cause for these ungratifying conditions can be traced to the 
colossal ignorance prevalent amongst so-called "Marxian" So- 
cialists on matters Marxian. Therefore, the only force able to 
curb and eventually obliterate "these evil powers of darkness" is 
familiarity with the works of their idol, and an acquaintance with 
the lucid teachings of their much heralded leader, through a 
systematic study of Socialist classics. The organization of 
classes or circles for the study of Socialist classics should, con- 
sequently, be seriously taken in hand by all Socialists who have 
the healthy development of Marxism at heart. A vigorous, revo- 
lutionary political and industrial movement of Socialism can only 
flow from a sound theoretical conception of Marxism; no con- 
scious, effective and revolutionary policy can be expected from 
the vast majority of the political and economic forces now operat- 
ing under the banner of Socialism. 

* * * 

When a student enters upon the study of Socialism, the first 
truism he should remember is that Socialism as a science does not 
occupy itself nearly so extensively with the contemplation and 
elucidation of future society, as with the examination and eco- 
nomic analysis of the present one. Scientific Socialism is, 
therefore, not as it is generally and mistakenly assumed, a theo- 
retical system dealing solely with the multifarious phases of the 
Cooperative Commonwealth, but one which constitutes primarily 
an inquiry into the origin, foundation, laws and tendencies 
noticeable in the development of capitalist production. In con- 
sequence, a knowledge of Socialism does not consist of an indi- 
vidual's competence to memorize a definition formulating the 
economic and social basis of Socialist production, i. e., setting 
forth the economic groundwork of the Industrial Republic and the 



OUTLINE FOR STUDY OF MARXISM 89 

social consequences resulting therefrom, but rather of his ability 
to file a brief for Socialism, by convincingly pointing out the ne- 
cessity for and inevitability of the Cooperative Commonwealth 
germinating in the womb of capitalist society. A knowledge of So- 
cialism demands, therefore, in the first place not so much a study 
of future society as it does a thorough investigation of present 
social and economic life. In consequence, Socialism represents 
more an investigation of capitalist production and an exposition 
of the social and economic laws underlying the same than an 
abstract theory or speculation of Industrial Democracy. How- 
ever, it must be also emphasized that in order to have a normal, 
that is scientifically sound conception of future society, and an 
understanding of the forces and social elements making for it, a 
deep and scientific appreciation of Capitalism is absolutely 
indispensable. 

As an excellent introduction into the so-called mysteries of 
Economics and the peculiarities of the Socialist nomenclature, 
also as a textbook of Socialism unparalleled for lucidness, pithi- 
ness and accuracy I recommend a close study of "Das Erfurter 
Programm," by Karl Kautsky, published in English complete 
under the name of "The Class Struggle" and translated by Wm. 
E. Bohn, or chapters of which are issued in pamphlet form under 
the titles of "The Working Class," "The Capitalist Class," "The 
Class Struggle" and "The Socialist Republic," translated and 
adapted to American conditions by Daniel De Leon. There is 
probably no book in the by no means limited assortment of 
Socialist literature that equals this work in its scrupulous 
accuracy of exposition; an accuracy made doubly effective be- 
cause it is coupled with a remarkable and rare simplicity in the 
presentation of Marxian fundamentals. Here we have a com- 
pendium of Socialism, written by a Marxian scholar of inter- 
national repute, classical in its treatment of the subject matter, 
and truly deserving the widest possible circulation in the Socialist 
and labor movement. "Das Erfurter Programm," as the German 



90 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

title of "The Class Struggle" suggests, was originally written to 
furnish a theoretical explanation and scientific elucidation of the 
programme of the German Social Democracy, adopted at Er- 
furt, 1891, to the workers. The very purpose and nature of such 
a work makes out of it a rich source of information for particu- 
larly the serious student ; because here the penetrating rays of 
Marxism are thrown upon the programmatic demands and prin- 
ciples of a political party of Socialism, and employed or utilized 
to verify the same before the bar of science. "Das Erfurter 
Programm" (''The Class Struggle") succeeds admirably in pre- 
senting and explaining Socialist fundamentals to the novice or 
uninitiated. However, in doing this, it claims to be, as already 
stated, substantiating the demands and theoretical propositions 
laid down in the Erfurt programme of the Social Democratic 
Party. In the opinion of the writer, the object of this splendid 
work has been only partially fulfilled, at least the object of its 
publishers, because as an advocate of sound, scientific funda- 
mentals it has no rival in Socialist literature, in consequence, 
neither can it find its equal as a repudiator of palliatives and so- 
called immediate demands, so popular in the German Social 
Democracy and with which the Erfurt programme is overloaded. 

Possessing a working knowledge of the genesis and character 
of capitalist production, also of the economic and social status of 
the various classes in present society, the student should now seek 
to familiarize himself more thoroughly with the Socialist concep- 
tion of social evolution, i. e., with the philosophical foundation of 
scientific Socialism. Familiarity with the elements and propo- 
sitions of Historical Materialism will also lead to a better under- 
standing and more competent appreciation of social phenomena, 
and simultaneously equips the reader with the knowledge that 
will henceforth enable him to differentiate intelligently between 
Utopian and Scientific Socialism. An intensive study of Frederick 
Engels' masterpiece "Development of Socialism from Utopia to a 
Science" is now recommended. In conjunction with these philo- 



OUTLINE FOR STUDY OF MARXISM 91 

sophical studies, the student ought to read the "Preliminary 
Remarks" to "Principles of Political Economy," by John Stuart 
Mills. In this introduction the great English Economist gives 
in a lucid and brilliant form a short resume of the principal 
stages in the evolution of the human race. If this work is not 
procurable, then the student can commence immediately with 
the "Evolution of Property," by Paul Lafargue. However, a 
diligent perusal of Mills' "Preliminary Remarks" can not be too 
strongly recommended. 

In order to develop and broaden the student's knowledge of 
Political Economy, the study of the following works is now 
opportune and must be carried out in the order they are listed : 
"Wage, Labor and Capital," by Karl Marx; "High Cost of 
Living," by Arnold Petersen ; "Value, Price and Profit," by Karl 
Marx. 

Knowing the economic and social forces underlying social 
development, also possessing a scientific conception of social 
phenomena and historical manifestations; furthermore, being 
somewhat familiar with the general phases of social evolution, it 
is now desirable and quite essential that the student begin a 
somewhat systematic study in Ethnology, Sociology and History. 
As an introduction to this interesting course of reading, the 
student should slowly and patiently explore that treasure island 
of facts, that monumental work in Ethnology, "Ancient Society," 
by Lewis H. Morgan. A thorough and diligent study of this 
classic is absolutely imperative and will greatly assist in the 
proper understanding of the subsequent periods in historical de- 
velopment. A study of the following works is now recommended : 
"The Ancient Lowly," by C. Osborne Ward; "Two Pages from 
Roman History," by Daniel De Leon; "Crises in European His- 
tory," by Gustav Bang; "An Introduction to the Study of the 
Middle Ages" and "Medieval Europe," by Ephraim Emerton; 
"The Middle Ages," by Henry Hallam; "History of European 
Morals," by William Edward Hartpole Lecky ; "General History 



92 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

of Civilization in Europe," by Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot ; 
"History of Civilization in England," by Henry Thomas Buckle; 
and as supplementary reading "The Mysteries of the People, or 
History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages," by Eugene 
Sue, translated from the original French by Daniel De Leon. 
The last work by Sue in this series consists of 21 volumes, and 
is really a universal history in itself, depicting the class struggle 
as it has raged through the ages and under the different social 
systems. For a study of social development in America the 
works listed below will be found suitable ; these works are written 
by scholars well ground in the theories of Historical Materialism, 
and, consequently lay bare the actual driving forces responsible 
for and behind social change in this country: "American Indus- 
trial Evolution from Frontier to Factory," by Justus Ebert; 
"Social Forces in American History," by A. M. Simons; and 
"The Workers in American History," by James Oneal. 

It is now also necessary that the student acquaint himself with 
the inception and growth of the Socialist movement, a growth, 
however, that has not always kept abreast with the development 
of theoretical Socialism. The following classics of Socialist 
literature and historic documents should now be critically read: 
"The Communist Manifesto," by Karl Marx and Frederick 
Engels; "Revolution and Counter-Revolution, or Germany in 
1848," erroneously credited to and published under the name of 
(Karl Marx, but actually written by Frederick Engels; "The 
Class Struggle in France 1848-1850," by Karl Marx; "The 
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon," by Karl Marx; and 
"The Civil War in France" ("The Paris Commune"), by Karl 
Marx. In conjunction with the foregoing the following works, 
dealing in the main with American conditions and problems, may 
be profitably read: "History of Socialism in the United States," 
by Morris Hillquit; "Proceedings of the Ninth Convention of 
the S. L. P." ; "Proceedings of the Tenth National Convention of 
the S. L. P., 1900"; "New Jersey Socialist Unity Conference"; \j 



OUTLINE FOR STUDY OF MARXISM 93 

"Flashlights of the Amsterdam Congress," by Daniel De Leon; 
"Launching of the I. W. W.," by Paul F. Brissenden; and "Pro- 
ceedings of the First Convention of the Industrial Workers of 
the World, Chicago, 1905/ V 

Fully equipped with the various subjects and phases consti- 
tuting the theoretical system of Marxism, and being also some- 
what familiar with the various stages and periods of social de- 
velopment, the student is now amply prepared to take up the 
study of works usually considered too ponderous or "academic" 
for the unprepared worker. These works form the basis of the 
theoretical structure of Marxism, and their study is, therefore, 
synonymous with imbibing the Socialist philosophy at its "original 
sources." The first of this class of works to be assiduously 
studied is Frederick Engels' "Landmarks of Scientific Socialism" 
(Anti-Duehring). In conjunction with this invaluable gem of 
Socialist literature "Feuerbach, Roots of Socialist Philosophy," 
by the same author ; and "A Critique to Political Economy" and 
"Poverty of Philosophy," by Karl Marx should be read; special 
attention being given to the Preface of the "Critique." In this 
connection "The Theoretical System of Karl Marx," by Louis 
B. Boudin, will also serve as very effective and profitable sup- 
plementary reading. 

The next and final work to be taken up in this course of read- 
ing will be the study of "Capital," the so-called foundation or 
basic work of Socialist Political Economy. Before, however, 
commencing this important and tedious task, the student should 
do some additional preliminary reading and rehearse his studies 
in Economics. He should, for example, reread "Wage, Labor 
and Capital," "Value, Price and Profit," etc., and particularly seek 
to master the contents of Marx's "A Critique to Political Eco- 
nomy," already referred to above. Furthermore, a perusal of 
works of a critical and more or less controversial nature, occu- 
pying themselves with the various phases of Marxism as formu- 
lated and substantiated in "Capital," will be of great assistance 



94 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

to a proper understanding of this masterpiece. For this purpose, 
the following brochures are recommended as collateral reading: 
"Vulgar Economy," by Daniel De Leon; "Marx on Mallock, or 
Facts versus Fiction," by the same author; "Was Marx Wrong?", 
£jby I. M. Rubinow ; and "Karl Marx and Boehm-Bawerk, Vulgar 
Economy Illustrated," by W. H. Emmett. ; / 

The study of "Capital" can now be taken up, and in this con- 
nection the following suggestions should be observed. The social 
and historical significance of this work has been, I believe, suf- 
ficiently emphasized and dealt with in the lectures proper and, 
therefore, requires no further elucidation. What is now of prime 
importance to the prospective reader or student of "Capital" is a 
plan or course of procedure netting the best possible results with 
the smallest expenditure of energies. It can not be denied, all 
popular assertions notwithstanding, that "Capital" is to the 
average workingman, unaccustomed to scientific works, quite a 
tedious and ponderous volume; furthermore, that an indiscrim- 
inate and unsystematic reading of this book is not very conducive 
to either the spirit and future efforts of the reader, or to an 
intelligent appreciation of the work itself. As underscored in 
this article before, in the humble opinion of the writer, an 
EXHAUSTIVE course of preliminary reading and study is 
absolutely essential, yes, a prerequisite, for a proper understand- 
ing of "Capital." Hence if classes or individuals, not equipped 
with the aforementioned knowledge so necessary for a proper 
perception or understanding, i. e., unprepared and untrained to 
assimilate or digest the intellectual food offered in this monu- 
mental work, give up their studies in despair, then the reason 
should not be ascribed to the "ponderous form of presentation in 
'Capital'," but to the insufficient preparation and inability of 
these students to understand the nature and mode of Marx's 
investigations and deductions. However, those who have dili- 
gently followed the lecturer through his discourses and studied 
the books recommended in this Outline need have no fears on this 



OUTLINE FOR STUDY OF MARXISM 95 

score, and will experience no difficulties in understanding 
"Capital." 

To the student desirous of conserving energy, also to the 
teachers of "Capital" I would suggest and warmly recommend 
that they begin the study of the book not in the customary way, 
but commence with Part VIII, The So-Called Primitive Accumu- 
lation. This section deals with and graphically depicts the social 
and economic origin of capital and capitalist production, and 
shatters once and for all time that well-known myth of capital 
being the result or fruit of abstinence. In a powerful and highly 
fascinating style, Marx unrolls before the eyes of the reader a 
picture vividly showing the birth, development and culmination 
of Capitalism. Here we have a history of the capitalistic stage 
in the endless chain of social development, a history written by 
the formulator of Historical Materialism, and it is truly a pre- 
sentation throbbing with the creative vitality only inherent in con- 
vincing and irrefutable arguments : arguments taken from and 
corresponding with the indisputable facts of historic data and 
events. In this section of the book the secret of primitive ac- 
cumulation, the expropriation of the peasants and their disposses- 
sion from the soil, the bloody and barbarous legislation against 
the expropriated in the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries, the genesis 
of agrarian and industrial capital, and the historical tendencies 
of capitalist accumulation are exposed and dispassionately 
analyzed ; including a scientific dissection of our modern theory 
fot colonization — an examination that will prove to be particularly 
Interesting when read in the light of the present war. 

From this part of the book turn to Part III, Chapter X, on 
The Working Day, and read Section 1, The Limits of the Work- 
ing Day, Section 2, The Greed for Surplus Labor. — Manufacturer 
and Boyard, Section 3, Branches of English Industries without 
Legal Limits to Exploitation, Section 4, Day and Night Work. — 
The Relay System, Section 5, The Struggle for a Normal Work- 
ing Day, — Compulsory Laws for the Extension of the Working 



96 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

Day from the Middle of the 14th to v the End of the 17th 
Century, Section 6, The Struggle for the Normal WorkingDay — 
Compulsory Limitation by Law of the Working Time.— The 
English Factory Acts, 1833 to 1864, Section 7, The Struggle for 
a Normal Working Day.— Reaction of the English Factory Acts 
on Other Countries. As the sub-headings sufficiently indicate, 
this chapter deals solely with the historical growth of and tend- 
encies developed by capitalist exploitation, and thus furnishes an 
indictment of fact fearlessly laying bare the revolting, barbarous 
and anti-social character of the capitalist system of production. 

In order to refresh the student's memory along the lines of 
the Materialist Conception of History, and for the purpose of 
familiarizing him with a brilliant piece of applied Historical 
Materialism, he should turn to Part IV, and assiduously peruse 
Chapter XV, dealing with Machinery and Modern Industry. In 
this chapter the following interesting problems are taken up: 
The Development of Machinery, The Value transferred by 
Machinery to the Product, The Proximate Effects of Machinery 
on the Workman (Appropriation of Supplementary Labor- 
Power by Capital, The Employment of Women and Children, 
Prolongation of the Working Day, Intensification of Labor), The 
Factory, The Strife between Workman and Machinery, The 
Theory of Compensation as regards Workpeople displaced by 
Machinery, Repulsion and Attraction of Workpeople by the 
Factory System, Revolution effected in Manufacture, Handi- 
crafts, and Domestic Industry by Modern Industry, The Factory 
Acts, etc., and Modern Industry and Agriculture. 

Being fully acquainted with the origin, development and 
tendencies of Capitalism, also quite familiar with the historical 
role assumed by it in the process of social evolution, the student 
is now sufficiently equipped to study the economic structure and 
laws of the capitalist system of production. And to this phase 
of investigation the remaining and largest part of "Capital" is 
devoted. Having digested such works as "Value, Price and 



OUTLINE FOR STUDY OF MARXISM 97 

Profit," "The Class Struggle," "A Critique to Political Economy," 
etc., the student is well ground and at home in the Socialist and 
scientific terminology, also in the elements of Marxian Eco- 
nomics, and should, therefore, experience no difficulties in the 
study of such portions of the work dealing primarily with the 
investigation and analysis of capitalist production in its pure 
economic form. The first Chapter of Part I can be defined as 
the bedrock of Socialist Economics. In the four sections com- 
posing this masterly treatise on Commodities, the basic principles 
and substance of Marxian Economics are laid down. In this 
chapter such highly important subjects as The two Factors of a 
Commodity, Use Value and Value (the Substance of Value and 
the Magnitude of Value), The Twofold Character of the Labor 
embodied in Commodities, The Form of Value or Exchange 
Value and The Fetishism of Commodities are subjected to an 
examination, the findings resulting therefrom elucidated and 
formulated in concise statements and accurate deductions. A 
mastery of the first ninety-six pages of "Capital" js, consequently, 
essential for an intelligent understanding of the remaining chap- 
ters in the book ; because such a mastery equips the student with 
a faculty of scientific conception and differentiation quite con- 
ducive and necessary to further progress ; again, the fact of being 
at home in the labyrinth of theoretical definitions and economic 
complexities constituting the groundwork of Marxian Eco- 
nomics is in itself an invaluable asset to the future intellectual 
labors of the student, and implies, without exaggeration, a 
knowledge of the quintessential principles of Marxism. Once the 
student has a correct conception of such familiar terms as 
Wealth, Value, Use Value, Exchange Value, Commodity, Labor 
Power, Surplus Value, Capital, etc., the hardest or most irksome 
part of the task can be considered accomplished. The remaining 
chapters in the work can now be taken up and studied in their 
regular order, including a re-reading of those previously studied, 
and the student should, relatively considered, experience no ex- 
ceptional difficulties in his work. 



98 KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK 

To not a few readers this course of study will no doubt seem 
ponderous and unnecessarily voluminous. It will probably strike 
many as being too "academic," "theoretical" and "impractical." 
The absence of the current and popular works and tracts on 
Socialism may also seem inexplicable to some and earn for this 
course the reputation of being too "scientific" or "orthodox." To 
all these antiquated and well known but superficial criticisms and 
stereotype platitudes the author has only one reply to make, 
namely: that the above is to be a course in Marxian Socialism, 
aiming solely to equip the students with a working knowledge 
of the fundamentals and basic elements of the Socialist philo- 
sophy. It is not to be a course in the various "adaptations" and 
"practical" revisions or abortions of Marxism, popularly taught 
to a naive and guileless public as "scientific" Socialism by a set 
of unscrupulous political fakirs. All the works listed and re- 
commended in this course are recognized classics of Socialism, 
and can be considered as standing proof for the absolute super- 
fluousness of the countless collection of books and pamphlets 
published on this subject, all claiming to be "popular expositions" 
of Socialism and "filling a long felt want." Most of these works 
contain as a rule nothing else but the intellectual drivel of a 
coterie of, in many cases, well meaning but ignorant pseudo 
intellectuals, and in other instances may be classified as the output 
of a set of unprincipled mercenaries, who see in the labor and 
Socialist movement a lucrative field for the realization of their 
personal ambitions. Therefore, the author sincerely trusts that 
the perusal and diligent study of the works listed in this course 
will assist to create a sound conception of Marxism and a de- 
mand for scientific SOCIALIST literature in the Socialist 
movement. 

8p 3fC 5|C 

In the essay entitled "The Constructive Elements of Social- 
ism," the author has attempted to combine Marxism proper with 
the tactical and constructive phases of Socialism as they exist in 



I 



OUTLINE FOR STUDY OF MARXISM 99 

the modern labor movement and are necessitated or produced by 
the social forces inherent in modern and full-fledged Capitalism. 
This essay also concludes this series, and can be considered the 
practical application of revolutionary Marxism to oligarchic, 
imperialistic Capitalism. 



I * 



THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS 
OF SOCIALISM 



THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 103 



I. 

• 

IT is a recognized and accepted proposition amongst Socialists 
that Socialism derives its claim to a science from two branches 
of scientific investigation: The first, Marxian Economics, is a 
thorough dissection and profound critique of capitalist produc- 
tion ; and the second, the Materialist Conception of History, pro- 
vides the student with a theory for the understanding and appre- 
ciation of historical phenomena or social development. 

Through the application of the Socialist method of historic 
investigation to social evolution, the various and ever changing 
stages in the complex development of mankind assume a more 
distinct form, and the driving forces and causes underlying this 
endless chain of struggles, transformations and revolutions are 
laid bare and exposed to the investigator. Through the proper 
utilization of the Materialist Conception of History in studying 
the past and present of human progress, history, with its many 
almost impenetrable mysteries and strange labyrinths, ceases to be 
a closed book to the student, and becomes a vital, interesting nar- 
rative, depicting the unceasing struggles of the classes through 
the ages : a struggle that finds its culmination in the furious class 
war raging between Capital and Labor to-day, and that will be 
definitely concluded with the abolition of class prerogatives in 
property and the establishment of the Industrial Republic. As 
stated before, to shed light on the multifarious phases of historical 
development, and to thus enable the investigator to intelligently 
appreciate and appraise existing conditions by a sound knowledge 
of the past, also to enable him to vision and penetrate into the 
future with the aid of scientific spectacles, that is the domain 
of Historical Materialism, the groundwork of the Socialist 
philosophy. 



104 THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 

Upon this massive and imposing foundation the system of 
Socialist, or, to be more exact, Marxian Economics is erected. 
The Economics of Marx are nothing else but a key for the proper 
understanding of the origin, nature and culmination of the capi- 
talist system of production. Marxian Economics furnish to the 
student a complete analysis of the laws underlying present-day 
production; they point out the causes of the various industrial 
manifestations and also expose and formulate the tendencies in- 
herent in these economic potentialities. Thus the genesis of profit, 
interest, rent, unemployment, panics, competition and wars is 
easily ascertained with the aid of the Marxian system of economic 
research. For a scientific conception of Capitalism, therefore, 
the study of Socialist Economics is indispensable. And without 
a sound knowledge of capitalist production, no effective Socialist 
activity, economic or political, is possible. 

The Materialist Conception of History and Marxian Econo- 
mics, i. e., the Socialist conception of historic development plus 
the Socialist analysis of capitalist production, these two theo- 
retical systems are the intellectual pillars upon which the Socialist 
movement rests — they symbolize the bedrock of Socialist science. 
In proportion as the Socialist movement organizes and develops 
in accord with the dictates flowing from a proper assimilation of 
these principles, in that proportion will it become a Socialist 
movement and possess the revolutionary and constructive vital- 
ities so peculiar to a class-conscious movement, and vice versa. 
Therefore the strength of the Socialist movement is necessarily 
to be found in a sound and comprehensive understanding of its 
principles and aims by the rank and file. Without this under- 
standing no intelligent action is possible, and no responsible 
opinion can be rendered or decision arrived at. Consequently, 
familiarity with the fundamentals of the Socialist philosophy is 
an imperative prerequisite for a competent conception of party 
problems, and also for the proper understanding of Socialist 
tactics. 



THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 105 

The question of Socialist tactics belongs to the Constructive 
' Department of Socialism. It is a question which is generally 
raised unwillingly, and mostly considered not worthy of serious 
discussion. To many Socialists, and they are generally of the 
. calibre who have not mastered the fundamental prerequisites 
underscored above, the tactics of the Socialist movement are not 
determined by the conscious efforts of the Socialists, but are 
more or less the products of chance. And when we study the 
tactics employed by the different state and local organizations of 
the Socialist Party in this country, and notice the different con- 
ceptions responsible for the same — conceptions that, in many 
cases, go as far apart as day and night — then we must conclude : 
that this melting pot of tactics, this tactical hash, is only conceiv- 
able and possible in an organization whose members have as yet 
developed no unity of opinion as to the aim and historic mission 
of Socialism. A proper conception of the social significance of 
Capitalism, coupled with a knowledge of the economic structure 
or capitalist production, is bound to equip every worker with a 
proper understanding of the role played, or to be played by the 
Socialist movement in present society. Such an understanding 
will necessarily and instinctively stimulate the imagination, and 
create a vision of the goal of the Socialist movement in the mind 
of every proletarian. The historic role and status, and the goal 
of the Socialist movement being given, the determination of the 
proper tactics and methods to be employed in the struggle for 
industrial liberty now becomes imperative and a burning question. 

* * * 

The Constructive Department of Socialism is that branch of 
Socialist philosophy which occupies itself with the methods and 
forms of organization to be employed by the workers in their 
struggle against the exploiters for the Industrial Republic. It is 
the logical supplement to the two theoretical systems touched 
upon above; Marxian Economics and Historical Materialism 



106 THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 

emphasizing the necessity for and historic basis of Socialism, and 
Constructive Socialism pointing out the method for its realization. 
This constructive phase of Socialism is in reality the most im- 
portant element in the Socialist philosophy, because the develop- 
ment and success of the class-conscious proletariat actually 
depend upon its proper organization and the correct tactical 
interpretation and application of Socialist principles. Without the 
proper appreciation of the Socialist goal and adoption of the 
tactics resulting therefrom, no decisive victory for the working 
class is possible — no victory for Socialism can be obtained. 
The tactics, nature and form of organization of the Social- 
ist movement may, therefore, be defined as the tools of the 
working class absolutely essential to the erection of the Industrial 
Republic. To determine and define these methods and forms of 
proletarian organization is, consequently, synonymous with lay- 
ing the theoretical foundation of the Socialist Commonwealth. 

Marxian Economics clearly emphasize that the capitalist sys- 
tem will only disappear with the abolition of private ownership 
in the means of production. This proclaims the necessity for 
industrial revolution. The basis of Capitalism is private owner- 
ship, consequently, the basis of Socialism, its antithesis, can only 
be social ownership; as can readily be seen — one excludes the 
other, and the domination of one implies the subjugation of the 
other. Industrial revolution or the movement for industrial re- 
volution, can, therefore, project only one demand and that is the 
socialization of industry and all agencies of production. Such a 
demand, however, is not only in accord with the tendencies and 
dictates of social evolution, but also voices at the same time the 
specific class interests of the proletariat, and can, therefore, only 
emanate from that social layer. The demand of social evolution, 
whose obedient servant the working class is, is a demand at war 
with the basic interests of the capitalist class. The working 
class, as an agent of social evolution, and the capitalist class, as an 
obstacle in the path of economic progress, have, therefore, nothing 



THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 107 

in common. This fundamental difference of interests, functions 
and historic destinies breeds the class antagonism and the struggle 
for power. 

To-day Capitalism is strongly fortified behind economic and 
political bulwarks. By virtue of its industrial powers, it has 
humanity the world over at the throat. To dislodge Capitalism 
from this powerful position, and to thus lay the cornerstone of 
the Socialist Commonwealth is the august mission of Constructive 
Socialism. v. 

In this struggle between the capitalist class and the proletariat, 
the latter, being in the position of aggressor, is naturally at a dis- 
advantage. It is a disadvantage, however, that compels a survey 
of the battlefield by the workers, the results of which contain the 
solution to the problem of how to overcome and eliminate this 
obstacle. This survey of the economic, political and social posi- 
tion of the capitalist class reveals, that the basic power or in- 
fluence of this class resides not, as is so often erroneously 
assumed, in its political domination or control of government, but 
in its economic rule over society. History teaches and profusely 
illustrates : that the class in control of the economic resources of 
society in a given period has also been the class to exercise prac- 
tical control over political society, i. e. — over society itself. 
History vindicates the contention that the economic life of society, 
the form of ownership and methods of production and exchange 
existing at a certain stage of social development, is the compel- 
ling factor, the preponderant form, which determines, influences 
and shapes all other ethical, moral, intellectual and political, in 
short — cultural phases of life. 

A casual study of the periods of Antique Slavery, Feudalism 
and Capitalism will serve to convincingly illustrate this conten- 
tion. Such a study will reveal that the roots of Slavery rested in 
the absolute domination of a people by another; that the enslave- 
ment and exploitation of a people by Rome was made possible 
only by the superior and well organized economic resources and 



108 THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 

the disciplined armies of the conquerors. The economic foundation 
of Rome was predicated on organized slavery; and even the 
classic period of Letters and Art in Greece and Rome, that as 
yet uneclipsed period of splendour, was reared upon the backs of 
slaves. With the decay and fall of Slavery, the marvellous splen- 
dour, and the political and military power of Rome also collapsed. 
The same tendencies are also detectable when examining Feudal- 
ism. Here we note the unlimited power of social control vested 
in the same feudality, which through its ownership or tenure of 
the land — the then main agent of production — exerted practically 
an undivided influence over every detail in the life of its subjects. 
By virtue of this economic control — land ownership — the feudal 
lord was actually elevated to the position of arbitrator over the 
life, happiness and prosperity of his serfs : He held their destinies 
in the hollow of his hand, because he monopolized the wherewith 
of life — the land. And when we make an investigation of Capi- 
talism, the by far preponderant role played by the economic 
element of the capitalists' power in present society is easily dis- 
cernible. Here we are compelled to admit that the class divisions 
of to-day, similar to the ones of yore, are fundamentally economic 
or property divisions. Furthermore, that the influence of a class 
is not measured by the degree of its productivity, or the propor- 
tion of its work for the social welfare, etc., but mainly by the 
economic power in its control. To illustrate, in society to-day the 
nigh illimitable and colossal dimensions of the workers' produc- 
tive faculties are easily recognized and acknowledged by everyone. 
At the same time the relatively insignificant and minor role played 
by the capitalists in this industrial process is well known. If 
social and political influence were apportioned in ratio to the 
economic use-value of a class, then the proletariat would certainly 
be the dominant class in society and the capitalists occupy a most 
insignificant position. The opposite being the case, proves con- 
clusively that political and social influence is not the fruit of social 
service, but the product, as was the case in previous centuries, of 
economic power in some shape or form. The economic power of 



THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 109 

the capitalist class, a power to which the vast majority of the 
population is compelled to pay homage, is not only lodged in the 
private ownership of land, as in the case of Feudalism, but in the 
private ownership of all instruments and agencies of wealth pro- 
duction. The title of private ownership to the means necessary 
to the life and prosperity of a nation, vested in a numerically 
insignificant minority, gives this minority an unlimited control 
over the welfare and happiness of a people. Here we have the 
source of capitalist power — the genesis of the social and political 
significance of the capitalist class. The title of private ownership 
in the means of production is the cornerstone of the capitalists* 
social influence — the generator of every form of capitalist power. 

To shatter this foundation of capitalist class might, to cap- 
ture this stronghold of industrial despotism in the interest of the 
workers, must, therefore, be the one great object of Constructive 
Socialism. The destruction of the economic power of the capi- 
talist class, of course, also spells the collapse of its political rule, 
together with the social position occupied by this class, and 
announces the inception of the social revolution and the elevation 
of all the producers in society to the rulership of society. The 
question how to organize the proletarian forces for this momen- 
tous and gigantic object; how to create the so essential power in 
the working class ; this question is now in order, and its proper 
solution forms the quintessence of Constructive Socialism — the 
basis for scientific Socialist tactics and effective action. 

5jC 3JC 5JC 

It is a recognized truism that pressure begets pressure and 
that might breeds might. Furthermore, must the inexorable fact 
be recognized that the means and tactics of warfare of the ag- 
gressor, in this case the proletariat, are largely dependent on and 
determined by the strategical position and general methods em : 
ployed by the enemy, the capitalist class. A study of the social 
position of the capitalist class has already revealed to us that the 
roots of the exploiters' power in society are to be found in their 



110 THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 

economic control of the socially necessary means of production. 
The holding of this economic citadel imparts a strength or power 
to the capitalist class phenomenal in scope and only explainable 
by the absolute indispensability of these economic resources to 
society. To capture this position from the capitalist class ; to meet 
the economic power of the plutocrats with a superior economic 
power of the workers, that is the next logical step in this gigantic 
struggle. 

Economic power, as has been sufficiently illustrated in the 
foregoing pages, is the source of all other forms of social in- 
fluence; therefore, economic power can be correctly defined as 
the basic element of social might. Consequently, if a class seeks 
to rise to political domination, seeks to capture the governmental 
institutions of a nation, in short, seeks to attain control of society, 
it must first predicate its ambitions and demands upon a solid 
structure of organized economic power. Demands and move- 
ments not so fortified are in the outset doomed to ignominious 
failure and defeat. This deduction applies particularly to the 
struggle of the proletariat against the exploiting class. 

In our investigation we have clearly defined the seat of the 
capitalists' economic power, and, therefore, fully appreciate the 
significance and source of the political and social influence exer- 
cised by this class in society. We know that the title of private 
ownership in the means of production, vested in the capitalist 
class, is at the bottom of it all. In the face of such a powerful 
force, what form of economic power can the working class or- 
ganize with which to be able to overcome and obliterate the 
property prerogatives of Capitalism? 

We are fully aware that all ruling classes in the past have 
based or established their social supremacy upon some form of 
ownership, i. e., upon some property prerogative. The patricians 
of Rome considered birth and the possession of land, cattle and 
a multitude of slaves a fitting recommendation to rule ; the feudal 
lord pivoted his era of the mailed fist upon the absolute control 



THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 111 

of the land ; and the capitalist is in undisputed possession of the 
ship of state, by virtue of his absolute control over all the agencies 
of production in society. The working class, mustering its forces 
to give battle to the advocates and upholders of the present sys- 
tem, finds itself the only class in the long chain of social develop- 
ment that seeks to acquire the economic and political supremacy 
in society without possessing or attempting to fortify this 
supremacy with some property prerogative. 

The working class being toolless and stripped of every vestige 
of property can not organize its economic forces along the lines 
of ownership. The economic power of the proletariat rests not, 
as it is and has been the case with all parasitic ruling classes, in 
the power of ownership, but in the power of production : not in its 
problematical indispensability as a possessing class, but in its 
actual indispensability as a producing class. The physical and 
intellectual productive faculties of the working class form the 
groundwork of present day society and symbolize the pulsating 
blood of our social organism. Consequently, these faculties organ- 
ized on a class-conscious basis and in line with the dictates of 
economic development ; in other words, these physical and intel- 
lectual productive forces of the workers organized in the interest 
of the proletariat represent and form the structure of working 
class economic power. As can be readily seen, the seat of working 
class power, different from that of previous ruling classes, does 
not rest in the usurpation and possession of rights and property 
respectively, but in the consciousness of the proletariat's indis- 
pensability as a productive agent — in the consciousness of being 
the working class. This class-consciousness of the ivorkers is the 
generator of the economic power of the proletariat. Recognizing 
the economic indispensability of the workers in the process of 
production, and thereby appreciating the role played by the pro- 
letariat in the maintenance of society, it is now a simple matter 
for the class-conscious worker to translate these conceptions into 
proper forms of organization. 



112 THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 

Production being the origin of and maintaining element in 
social life; production also being solely carried on by the wor- 
kers; furthermore, exploitation or the appropriation of surplus 
value also taking place at the point of production ; and, again, the 
point of production being also the seat of the capitalists' economic 
power, it logically follows that the class organization of the work- 
ers will first marshal and organize its forces at this point. The 
organization of the workers along class-conscious lines at the 
point of production is synonymous to rearing and developing the 
economic power in the proletariat. Consequently, this power in- 
creases as the class-consciousness increases amongst the workers, 
and their economic and political organizations will grow in the 
same proportion. 

To sum up: The economic power of. the worker rests not in 
some form of ownership or property prerogative, as is the case 
with the capitalists, but in the recognition of his status as a wor- 
ker, in the recognition of his economic worth or indispensability — ■ 
in his class-consciousness. In order to assert itself effectively, this 
class-consciousness must take on certain organized forms on the 
industrial as well as political field, i. e., must express itself in 
accord with the requirements of capitalist development in par- 
ticular and social evolution in general. This phase of the problem 
will be dealt with in the second part of this article. 



THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 113 



II. 

IN the first part of this article a detailed examination of the 
social and economic position or status of the two principal 
classes in present society was made. This investigation, we 
believe, has revealed to us clearly the economic functions per- 
formed by the different social classes; thereby also exposing 
the sources or seat of their respective social power. We can at 
least venture to assert that it has brought home the so im- 
portant truism that all political or social influence exercised 
by a social category in a particular historic period is but a 
reflex of its economic influence or might, i. e., that political 
power or governmental control does not conquer and cement 
the industrial supremacy and hegemony for a class, but, on the 
contrary, that the industrial supremacy of a class is also bound 
to ultimately insure political power and governmental domina- 
tion to it. The proper recognition of this fact by the prole- 
tariat — a fact which can be amply substantiated by historic 
and sociological examples — will eventually compel this class 
to organize and conduct its struggle against Capitalism ac- 
cordingly. This further implies that the proper appreciation 
of this fundamental proposition will henceforth actuate the 
class-conscious workers to concentrate their energies upon the 
organization of their economic power; and this attempt will 
again animate them to seek to establish the original source of 
this potential force in the working-class. 

In our last article we emphasized that the economic power 
of the workers did not rest in some form of ownership or 
property prerogative, as is and was the case with all previous 
ruling classes, but in the recognition of their proletarian status, 
in the recognition of their economic worth or indispensability 
— in their class-consciousness. From this deduction it follows 



114 THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 

that the economic and social influence or power of the prole- 
tariat is not, as it has been so often erroneously asserted, to 
be found in the form or particular function of an organization, 
but in its spirit and theoretical composition. Not the form or 
particular functions will affect and determine the principles of 
an organization, but the principles will determine the form and 
functions. Therefore, it cannot be too emphatically under- 
scored that the power of the proletariat does not in the last 
analysis rest in the form or structure, but the spirit of an 
organization. Consequently, when certain Socialists attribute 
revolutionary vitality and creative power to Industrial Union- 
ism as Industrial Unionism without qualifying it with the word 
Socialist, then they commit precisely the same error which 
certain pure and simple politicians fall into, when they 
seek to "organize the masses into a large political party" 
and in their anxiety for success forget and ignore en- 
tirely the Socialist character of the organization. Primarily, 
it is not the question whether the workers are organized 
on the economic field along craft or industrial lines, because 
we have both forms of organization in existence now 
(see Germany and America for classical examples) ; neither, 
whether the workers engage in independent politics, such 
politics having been carried on for years by so-called 
liberal reform movements and alleged "Socialist" parties; 
but whether the economic and political activity is a Socialist 
activity; whether the industrial union is a class-con- 
scious union; and whether the Socialist political party is a 
truly working-class organization. The yardstick with which 
to establish the status of a workers' organization has been 
provided in our previous article, and is to be found in the 
organization's conception of Capitalism and the consequent 
interpretation of the class struggle resulting therefrom. To 
a revolutionary Socialist only such an organization is con- 
sidered class-conscious which affirms unequivocally the inabil- 



f 
THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 115 

ity of the workers to improve their economic and social 
conditions under Capitalism permanently and calls upon the 
workers to marshal their forces on the economic as well as 
political field under the banner of not palliation or reform, but 
revolution. Organizations, therefore, that devote their main 
efforts to the palliation of effects and the propagation of 
reforms, even if "ultimately" affirming and "demanding" 
Socialism, can not be considered class-conscious organizations, 
and are in reality a greater obstacle to the formation of a 
genuine proletarian army of the revolution than all the 
chicanery, economic despotism and social and cultural prerog- 
atives of the capitalist class combined. Class-conscious 
Socialist action can only be the product of a scientific concep- 
tion of capitalist production, of a Marxian interpretation of 
economic and social phenomena, and can, in consequence, 
have only a certain meaning to the working-class. Therefore 
it can not mean one thing to one worker and something else 
to another. It will also be admitted that certain scientific 
premises and a scientific mode of investigation furnish 
certain deductions, which again will prescribe or determine a 
definite mode of action. The mode of action or tactics of a 
class-conscious movement, as it can be readily gleaned from 
the preceding, are, therefore, not the fruit of "expediency" or 
chance, but the product of theoretical clarity and scientific 
perception. Such being the case, the tactical department of 
the Socialist movement is, consequently, inseparably con- 
nected with the theoretical system of Socialism, being in 
reality a component part of this system. Therefore, tactical 
clarity and efficiency in a Socialist movement can only flow 
from theoretical clarity; a soundness in scientific conscious- 
ness and profundity being the father to class-consciousness, and 
class-consciousness again giving birth to effective class action — 
the dynamo of class movements. 

Having established the original source of working-class 



116 THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 

power, and knowing that it rests in the consciousness of the 
worker appertaining to his economic indispensability, it is now 
quite a simple proposition to formulate a tactical program for 
the organization of this industrial might. Before we proceed 
with this task, it is, however, imperative to re-state in short 
the objective or the aim of the proletarian struggle. This 
objective, as emphasized before, is determined first by the 
Socialist analysis of capitalist production and secondly by the 
proper appreciation with the aid of Materialistic Conception 
of History of the historic role allotted to the working-class in 
the period of evolution. From the application of Historical 
Materialism and Marxian Economics to social development in 
general and Capitalism in particular, we are compelled to con- 
clude that the basic cause of the workers' misery and the 
original source of all class demarcations existing in present 
society, and the innumerable effects resulting therefrom are 
to be found in the capitalist or private ownership of the 
socially produced and operated instruments of wealth pro- 
duction ; and that, in consequence, as long as the fundamental 
antithesis between social production and individual appropria- 
tion continues to exist the multifarious other economic and 
political contradictions would naturally continue to thrive. 
The immediate and ultimate objective of the Socialist move- 
ment must, therefore, concentrate and organize around the 
demand for the abolition of private ownership in the socially 
necessary instruments of production (including all land), i. e., 
must marshal its forces for the shattering of the commodity 
status in labor-power and the inauguration of the Industrial 
Republic. Consequently, at this late date of capitalist de- 
velopment, in this period of social turmoil and full-fledged 
Capitalism, the only demand worthy of unstinted working- 
class support is the one which demands the unconditional 
surrender of the capitalist class — the Socialist Commonwealth, 
nothing less nor more. With this demand as the only imme- 



THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 117 

diate and ultimate aim to struggle for, with the social revolu- 
tion as the objective before it, the Socialist movement can not 
fail to be a truly revolutionary movement, and must by ne- 
cessity formulate tactics just as revolutionary as the aim that 
gave birth to them. 

We have seen from the foregoing that the economic power 
of the workers slumbers in their class-consciousness; further- 
more, that this class-consciousness can only be effectively 
aroused and reared in the proletarians with the aid of Socialist 
education predicated upon a Socialist or revolutionary 
objective. Therefore, all so-called "Socialist propaganda" and 
activity not based upon such an aim, or advancing it as the 
"ultimate demand", and advocating as "immediate demands" 
an endless string of palliatives or reforms, can not be con- 
sidered as Socialist activity, and the adherents and votes 
obtained through such a propaganda can not be considered 
class-conscious adherents or votes. The Socialist aim must, 
in consequence, be jealously guarded and kept intact by the 
Socialist movement and can not be sacrificed to the aspirations 
of political quacks or charlatans. The question what organic 
form is this economic power, this proletarian class-conscious- 
ness, to take on in its battle against the economic power of the 
capitalist class is now in order, and will be taken up in as 
detailed a form as the limited space at our disposal permits. 

As an introduction to this phase of Constructive Socialism 
we desire to affirm the necessity of utilizing both wings, of 
practising political as well as industrial action in the con- 
duction of the class war. Admitting the imperativeness of 
both, it now remains to establish the function of each and 
their relative importance in preparing for and carrying out the 
act of emancipation. 

We will first examine the function played by politics in the 
class struggle. It is now generally recognized that the existence 



118 THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 

of a political struggle presupposes the existence of an economic 
struggle: i. e., that political differences and antagonisms have 
their origin in economic differences, etc. Therefore, every polit- 
ical struggle is fundamentally an economic struggle; and the 
eradication of the industrial struggle of the classes spells, conse- 
quently, the eradication of politics. The existence of political 
parties and a political life in general is based upon the existence 
of classes, which again have their roots in the peculiar property 
prerogatives inherent in the economic system of a particular 
historical period. With the disappearance of economic classes 
social and political classes will also disappear. Therefore, as 
stated before, the abolition of all property prerogatives in eco- 
nomic life by the Socialist workers also implies the abolition of 
all political differences and the automatic ceasing of the political 
struggle. The political struggle, as carried on by the class- 
conscious workers and pursuing but one objective, can, therefore, 
be utilized and exploited by the proletariat for only one purpose, 
namely to abolish Capitalism. By using the political arm in this 
manner, the political victory of the workers will naturally be 
synonymous with the abolition of politics — the abolition of 
classes. Thus the political struggle is engaged in by the workers 
to carry on revolutionary Socialist propaganda. This struggle 
has, however, purely a destructive function, because a general 
political victory of Socialism spells the downfall of political gov- 
ernment and the advent of the Industrial Republic, a society 
without classes and political antagonisms. The possibility of such 
a decisive Socialist victory, however, presupposes the existence 
of certain industrial organizations of the proletariat necessary, 
lirst, to impart power to the political demand and, second, to 
perform the act of socialization. And this leads us to the func- 
tion played by industrial action in the class struggle. 

We know that the economic power of the workers rests in the 
consciousness of their economic indispensability as productive 
agents. To organize this economic indispensability at the point 



THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 119 

of production along class-conscious lines and in accord with the 
dictates of modern economic evolution is, as already stated be- 
fore, therefore, an urgent requirement of the hour and on par 
with generating and accumulating proletarian economic vitality. 
Class-conscious Socialist organization at the point of production, 
that is in the industries, however, is essential for a twofold reason 
and must be accomplished in a definite way. 

In the first place such an organization or Socialist Industrial 
Union is an organized expression of proletarian class-conscious- 
ness in a certain industry. This organized expression announces to 
society that the productive facilities of this particular industry are 
not only socially operated, but also in the control of Socialist 
workers, who are only waiting for the signal to supplement social 
production with social ownership. Of course the form of such 
an organization must also be in accord with the requirements of 
economic evolution; and being the product of class-conscious 
workers is bound to be in line with a scientific conception of capi- 
talist production. Such a conception clearly shows the insuffi- 
ciency and antiquatedness of the craft form of unionism, a form 
absolutely out of joint with the highly centralized character of 
capitalist industry. The Historical Materialist, and every scien- 
tific Socialist is a Historical Materialist, constructs and adapts his 
organization to meet the demands of social requirements. He 
studies economic and social conditions with a view of employing 
the knowledge gained therefrom to improve the position of the 
working-class in its fight for emancipation. Therefore, when the 
Historical Materialist emphasizes the necessity of organizing the 
workers along the lines of Socialist Industrial Unionism his plea 
is pivoted upon certain sound perceptions. The reason for the 
class character of every form of proletarian organization has been 
sufficiently underscored and need not be dwelled upon any more. 
What must now be shown is the necessity for this particular form 
of unionism : the necessity for Industrial Unionism. 

Industrial Unionism, like all previous forms of economic or- 



120 THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 

ganization which preceded it, is but a product of the particular 
character of the industries from which it emanated. The com- 
plex and centralized form of production, which gave birth to In- 
dustrial Unionism, can again on the one hand be attributed to the 
concentration of wealth into ever fewer hands, and on the other 
to an ever increasing social character of the machines or instru- 
ments of production. The competitive struggle with its process 
of elimination, and the discoveries and inventions on tl.2 field of 
mechanical and economic evolution are responsible for the highly 
corporate and at times monopolistic character of industries, and 
have given the death blow to small production and also every form 
of craft organization bound up therewith. Industrial Unionism is, 
therefore, but a reflex of industrialized (understand highly cen- 
tralized) capitalist production, and as such only an obedient ser- 
vant of economic evolution. Therefore, to expect proletarian 
class-consciousness to assume any other form of organic ex- 
pression on the industrial field than that of Industrial Unionism 
would be to expect the impossible to be possible, or the sharp 
observers to be blind. 

The Socialist Industrial Union, as the organized expression of 
proletarian economic indispensability on the industrial field, ful- 
fills two functions in the present struggle. Aside fom waging the 
every-day struggle of the workers against exploitation, a struggle 
that is waged distinctly with the view of abolishing exploitation, 
and which is, similar to the Socialist political struggle, purely de- 
structive, the Socialist Industrial Union also performs a con- 
structive function of great importance. This constructive func- 
tion consists in organizing the productive faculties of the workers, 
not only in line with the requirements of highly socialized capi- 
talist production, but also in line with the requirements of So- 
cialist production in the making. It is an axiom of Historical 
Materialism that the shell of every new society develops within 
the womb of the old. We also know that the social elements in 
capitalist production symbolize the formative stages of a new 



THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 121 

economic order. However, a class-conscious organization along 
the lines of highly centralized social production, and truly mani- 
festing the economic power of the workers, does more than give 
social expression to these formative stages — it really symbolizes 
the future structure of the Industrial Republic in the process of 
formation. Therefore, in the same proportion as the Socialist 
Industrial Union movement develops, in just that degree does the 
economic and political power of the capitalist class diminish, and 
the economic and political power of the workers increase. The 
growth of the Socialist Industrial Union Movement signifies the 
ever quicker approaching destruction of capitalist production on 
the one hand, and the ever more efficient organization of Socialist 
production on the other. Upon the economic power vested within 
the Socialist Industrial Union, historical evolution has, conse- 
quently, conferred two duties : the first, to stand as the organized 
economic might behind the revolutionary objective of the prole- 
tariat — to serve as the buckler and sword of the social revolu- 
tion; the second, to insure and organize the fruits of the revo- 
lution — to take and hold the industries in the interest of the 
Industrial Republic. In the first capacity, it serves as the agent 
and executor of the Socialist political party, and in the second 
it functions as the organized productive administration of the 
Industrial Republic. 

In concluding we wish again to emphasize that the economic 
and social might of the proletariat does not rest in a certain form 
of economic organisation, as for instance Industrial Unionism; 
furthermore, that the structural or organic phases can never im- 
part power to an organization; but that this economic might is 
lodged in the class-consciousness of the workers; however, that 
this class-consciousness can only be derived from a Socialist con- 
ception of Capitalism, which again imparts to the workers the Con- 
structive Elements of Socialism, clearly outlining the functions 
of revolutionary Socialist political action and Socialist Industrial 
LTnionism. In consequence, a worker can be an Industrial 



122 THE CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 

Unionist without being a Socialist, but not a Socialist without 
being an Industrial Unionist. Industrial Unionism to be effec- 
tive and to have the historic significance accorded to it above 
must, therefore, be squarely planted upon Socialist principles 
and be vitalized by the dynamic forces of class-consciousness. 

The advocacy of uncompromising Socialist principles is, in 
consequence, a fundamental demand for all Socialist agitation. 
Such Socialist propaganda can revolve around only one demand 
--Socialism, fighting and repudiating all other agitation and prin- 
ciples as reactionary or capitalistic. 



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